And Now The World Is Ours
by SongbirdNoodles
Summary: SantosAdmin. Donna's having a baby!
1. Chapter 1: Summit And Stomach

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter One: Stomach and Summit**

We're on Air Force One when it starts. We're going to the G8 summit in Germany, we're somewhere over Maine and I'm explaining to the First Lady why she needs to be especially friendly with her new French counterpart, and _not_ ask her if her decision not to leave her husband halfway through his campaign was motivated by his polling numbers (although we're all desperately curious), when I suddenly feel like someone's grabbed my stomach and put it into a blender.

I barely make it to the bathroom. As I wash my hands and rinse out my mouth and splash cold water on my face, I remember the sushi we had night before last, and roll my eyes at myself. That piece of Sashimi did look positively fishy, but I had to have it. It had something to do with proving a point to Josh, unsurprisingly enough. I shake my head at my pale reflection, drink some more water and go back to work.

The weird thing is, it happens again. Seven hours later, as we're about to land, the captain flies a rather rough curve to humor the President, who would probably be flying this plane himself if we let him, and my stomach protests violently. When I return to my seat this time, wiping my face and popping three pieces of gum into my mouth at once, Helen Santos throws me an eyebrows –raised look. "I'm never getting Sushi from that place again, that's for sure," I tell her. She nods quickly, and lets me quiz her on the seven other first ladies (six ladies, one first husband, actually) without further comment. But then Josh comes out of the President's office and waves me over with a most Josh-ish expression on his face. I excuse myself from Mrs. Santos and hurry over to him.

"Are you okay?" With a frown.

"Josh, I'm fine," I try to assure him, violently chewing my gum. "I must have caught a bad piece of sushi the other night, that's all."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's happened before, I guess I'm sensitive to that sort of thing." Okay, that's sort of a lie, but the last thing he needs to be worrying about is my stomach instead of this summit.

"Okay." He gives me another frowning, searching look. "Are you okay about… where we're going? Landing, particularly." Yes, I fail to mention- the summit's being hosted in picturesque Nuremberg, home of the current chancellor, which means we'll be landing at Nuremberg Air Force Base. Yes. But I'm fine with it- I actually did get PTSD counseling after… Gaza, and I called Stanley last week and talked it over with him. I'm fine. Not Josh-fine. Donna-fine. Perky.

Except for the stomach thing, but whatever.

I give Josh a reassuring half-hug, and because he looks like he's still about to say something, I add the only foolproof way to shut up Josh Lyman- a quick kiss. As we break apart, I repeat "I'm fine," gently swat him on the nose, and hurry back to my seat.

I busy myself with first lady flashcards for the remaining forty-or-so minutes of the flight, while every one else crowds around the windows to catch a glimpse of the picturesque landscape outside. The loud laughter and squealing around me remind me more of a tour bus than Air Force One sometimes. I catch Josh's eye, and we exchange a nostalgic smile, thinking of the days of President Bartlet, when a flight on Air Force One was a chance to breathe and think freely, be poets if we must, but certainly not an excuse to act like a bunch of Middle Schoolers on their end-of-year fieldtrip to Jamestown. I know Josh still sometimes longs for Leo to walk into the door and laugh his hoarse laugh and take the weight of this administration off his shoulders, though he'd kill me for putting it like that. But it's tough for him, being one of the oldest, most experienced staffers in this White House, and having to act like it all the time. The problem with being likened to the Kennedys, other than it getting old after a while and Mrs. Santos not approving for obvious reasons, is that youthful energy comes from youthful people- sometimes it feels like Josh and me are the old hats. Which is just so absurd.

Anyway. Everyone around me eventually gets over themselves and into their seats as we prepare for landing. And I truly am fine, about landing here and the Air force Base and everything. Because nothing that happened here was really so bad- scary and surreal, but it worked out well in the end. Josh with that stupid scrub cap on his head, the antiseptic smell, the feeling of being plunged into deep water and then pulled out again at warp speed after surgery. Josh, lying next to me when I woke up.

I remember that hospital so clearly- I could describe that room to you with the accuracy of a photograph, could tell you what the nurses looked like and what their names were. I remember everything as clearly as if it was yesterday. The trade-off, I suppose, is that I remember nothing at all about the attack. I remember Fitz turning back to say something to me, and the next thing I know, I'm on an airplane on my way to Germany. I found this concerning at first, and quit my first therapist when she told me it was not totally unheard of for the human brain to just not save traumatic memories, but Stanley told me the same thing.

"It's just gone," he said, "it was never there, actually. You never hit the save button, so to speak, and now it's just gone."

I tried to argue, "But how can it just be gone? Josh, Josh remembered about the shooting even if he thought he didn't, and he was a _mess_. How am I just fine?"

"You're not fine," Stanley pointed out. "You may not be suffering from PTSD as a result of the attack in Gaza, but you're a mess, too. Whatever happened in that hospital in Germany, that your brain seems to have wanted to save." Josh, grabbing my hand tight, looking at me like I was the most perfect thing in the world, as I lay on that operating table. "Think about that."

That conversation, in the end, played a big role in my decision to quit.

But anyway, that's thankfully all in the past. We're a year into the Santos Administration, and apart from the youthful-energy/lack-of-discipline thing, things are going pretty well. We don't screw up half as often as we did in the Old White House, as Josh and I have taken to calling those days, or maybe it just feels that way in retrospect. We didn't feel like we were screwing up back then, even when we were. This time around, we've pushed through Healthcare reform already, and some education stuff is in the making. The best part is how much I get to help. I guess the fact that, once we join forces, the First Lady and I can get the President and Josh to pretty much do anything has helped, because the East Wing and the First Lady's office have really become a forum for policy. It's amazing, to see the work we're able to do, the way we –_I_- get to shape policy and make people's lives better. Josh teases me about what he calls my wide-eyed farm-girl enthusiasm, but I don't care. My dad was an accountant for a car dealership and got up every morning wondering if he could call in sick. I'll never stop being grateful for the job I have.

I was talking about all this with CJ a couple of weeks ago, on the phone, and she said that it was the same for her. That she loved her job and couldn't imagine herself doing anything else and got a huge rush from it. And then she said, "But I'm doing something else now, and you know what? It's just as good. I get the same rush and I can't imagine myself doing anything else. Life changes, and that's good." And added, cryptically, "You'll see." To which I replied that I was happy with the life I was living and seeing right now.

The plane touches down, and as soon as we've slowed down, there's a flurry of activity as we make sure the First Couple looks presentable for runway greetings- new tie for the president, fresh make-up and an unwrinkled blouse for the first lady. "Chancellor Georg Finke and his wife Maria," I remind her over Josh's hasty policy reminders for the President. "Two teenage sons, they like horseback riding, she's a doctor."

"What does he do all day?" Helen jokes. "Donna, I'm fine. I'll see you guys at the hotel."

The Santos's exit the plane, all smiles and waves, to be greeted by the German chancellor and his wife. Josh and I linger in the doorway of the plane, and unexpectedly, while everyone's eyes are somewhere else, he pulls me close and kisses the top of my head. I wiggle around to look him in the eye- PDA's are definitely not like him, not on Air Force One, anyway.

"Josh?"

He shakes his head. "I'm just… having a moment."

"A good moment?"

He grabbed my waist a little tighter, lips in my hair again. "Now it is." I'll say.

Then the motorcade pulls away and we're herding everyone into their respective cars, shouting out reminders and instructions about what to say and what not to bring up, setting up meetings and making sure everyone's on their best behavior –once again, the chaperoning seventh graders image comes to mind- before I can crash in a car. We're still a small office- me, my assistant Kerry, communications director Ishmael and legislative assistant Jordan, plus a couple of interns- and only Kerry and Jordan made the trip, so we've actually got room, which is nice. We talk some strategy during the drive, before arriving at the hotel. Here, I'm delighted to discover that scheduling was nice enough to give Josh and me a room together, a suite, actually, with a _Jacuzzi_, before heading off to my first meeting.

The next two days pass in a blur- especially for the first ladies, these summits are about

networking, being nice to each other's face and pushing through their agenda through the husbands. And not a little about upstaging each other in the fabulousness and taste of their dresses. Mrs. Santos complains it's a lot like High School, and she has a point. But while my boss is attending catfight arenas disguised as beautiful medieval castles and children's hospitals, I get to sit in on meetings and actually _do_ stuff. The First Lady's left me in charge of "her" issues, so it's my responsibility to ensure issues like infant mortality, human trafficking and gender justice are heard as international power games play out. It's really not as glamorous as it sounds, because 90 of what we're doing has been decided in advance anyway, but the thrill is still enormous.

It also turns out the suite was a complete waste of the taxpayer's money, because by the time we come back we're both so tired we barely have the energy to talk to each other, let alone make use of the Jacuzzi. Josh hardly has it in him to tease me about the huge grin on my face when I come out of a meeting, he's that preoccupied about Russian missiles. Also, I throw up twice more- though I credit it to the amounts of _Bratwurst_ Jordan dared me to eat at one of the receptions, and refuse to think about it more. And just like that, we're on the plane again, flying home. Josh and the President are in a celebratory mood –they won the fight on Africa, securing a promise to nearly double aid and work with the WTO to open the markets- and the mood is giddy and lighthearted. We're playing charades and Taboo, drinking beer and laughing at the First Lady's impersonation of Madame Gangaux, her stick insect of a French counterpart (by now we're all convinced she only came back to her husband because he was about to become _Monsieur le President_). Lou tells us, with equal hilarity and disgust in her voice, that the Japanese Prime Minister was quite obviously hitting on her, and I have to ensure Josh that he didn't try to get me. I wonder if we would be at war with Japan by now if I hadn't.

When we get into Andrew's it's nine PM there, which makes it something like 2AM on our screwed-up half-jetlagged inner clocks. The President sends everyone home right away, expressively forbidding Josh to go back to the White House. "I want you in shape, the midterms are coming up," he reminds us all. "So get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning." I positively drag a very reluctant Josh into a car and get us home- home being a beautiful, tiny house in Georgetown behind a bright turquoise door- CJ's house, incidentally. When she and Danny moved out west, she offered it to us, and became something like our landlady. Although I think we pay a lot less rent than our neighbors.

Yawning and blinking, we find our way into bed. "How'd you like your first try at international powerbrokering?" Josh asks as I'm already falling asleep. When he sees my huge grin, he laughs. "Thought so."

I scoot closer into his arms, and my eyes fall shut. The last thing I feel before I drift away are Josh's fingers on my elbow and his soft, regular breathing on my hair.


	2. Chapter 2: Riding On A Camel

**And Now The World is Ours**

Chapter Two: Riding On A Camel

_Three things that cannot be hid long: love, pregnancy and riding on a camel. _

_Arab Proverb_

Midterms are in two weeks, and we're rallying. We want to keep the House and win the Senate, and have a very good chance of doing both. There's a bunch of competitive and important races going on, and everyone's in power-campaign mode- everyone except me, that is. I'm having trouble focusing. Focusing on more than my two favorite races, anyway, the California 8th and 47th. Because guess who's running? Joey Lucas, and Will! Joey's basically got her race sown up- as if the population of the Bay Area wouldn't vote for a charming, female Democrat, even if she does need Kenny to communicate with most of her constituents, and Will is finally running and actually winning the campaign he should have run and won six years ago. Chuck Webb had to resign over your typical lobbyist-slash-sex scandal; his seat was up for grabs and good old Will's doing his best to grab it. He's polling at 48, and I'm actually flying down with the First Lady in two weeks to campaign for him, and Joey, which is why they're both here today. I'm meeting Joey sometime this morning, and then Will for lunch.

As I'm thinking about all this, I'm nibbling plain white toast and politely listening to Josh's early morning rant about- something. Or not listening, as the case may be.

"What on earth are you eating?" Josh, done ranting, looks up at me from a half-eaten bowl of Apple Jacks.

"I still feel a bit woozy." Woozy is an understatement. We came back from Germany almost a week ago, and still, most foods –anything fried, and most dairy- have me running to the bathroom. Dry toast and chamomile, that's my breakfast these days, no matter how upsetting it is.

"You should go see a doctor, there's no way this is normal," Josh tells me through a slurp of milk. _Down, stomach, you don't have to eat it_. Gulping town the rest of my tea, I hastily get up. "Where you going so fast?"

"Dressed, and away from your gross, gross cereal."

"Hey, you bought me this stuff, this was-"

"I bought you _Life_ and Quaker Oats and other healthy things. This stuff? Not healthy! Anyway, _I _am getting dressed. What about you?"

"Yeah, I was going to go to work in these," he gestures at his T-shirt and boxers with a grin so smarmily charming I want to wipe it off his face in the way only I can.

"You're wearing _that_? For your meeting with Will?" Ten minutes later Josh, brushing his teeth and trying to simultaneously button his shirt, joins me in front of our bedroom mirror.

"What's wrong with it?" I glance at my navy blue satin blouse unsurely before turning towards him and buttoning his shirt for him.

"It's kind of…" he trails off, his eyes widening suggestively.

"Revealing?!" I laugh. "Josh!"

"It is! You look like-"

"Joshua Lyman, you are without a doubt the most ridiculous person I've ever met."

"Is that counting Janis The Star Trek Fan?"

"Not counting Janis."

"In that case, I'm okay." He kisses me, his mouth still full of toothpaste.

"Mmm."

"We should do this every morning."

"Maybe you should brush your teeth every morning."

"Donna? Joey's here to see you." Kerry sticks her head into my office.

"Joey?" I'm turning into a scatterbrain, it's crazy. For weeks now, I've been forgetting names, dates, meetings- exactly the kind of stuff I used to be so freakishly good at. "Oh, right." Joey Lucas is here! She walks in, with Kenny as usual. I ask Kerry for some coffee for them, and an onion bagel from the Mess for me. Somehow that's exactly what I want right now. An onion bagel, when I could barely deal with plain white toast this morning. _What the hell is wrong with me?_ Joey and I talk strategy and scheduling for awhile- she understands that we have to spend more time in Will's district than hers, but cheers up when I show her the First Lady's schedule in San Francisco- basically nothing but campaign events. We talk some more as I happily gnaw on my onion bagel.

"Is that really that good?" She asks me incredulously.

"Not really," I admit, "but I just had this craving, it was so weird, even though I've been sick all week, throwing up and stuff, I really wanted to have an onion bagel."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"It's going to be strange and awkward and personal."

"Go ahead."

"Are your boobs bigger?"

_What the hell?_ I stare at Kenny, who blushes and shrugs. "Did you get…?" He nods, gesturing at Joey with a what-do-I-know expression on his face.

"I said, are your boobs bigger?" Joey repeats, actually speaking this time. Then, signing to Kenny, who takes over again, "I told you it was an awkward question, I'm just asking because, with the food craving, and the throwing up, and you mentioned before you were forgetting things…" His voice trails away.

I am so confused. "Yes, but what does that have to with my boobs being… bigger?" I'm blushing now. Then I remember what Josh said about my blouse this morning, and when I glance down now, I realize it's straining quite a bit more than usual. "Oh my god." This is getting spooky. "How did you know that?" Was Joey Lucas staring at my boobs? Is she a lesbian? Is she in love with me? Does Kenny know?

She scribbles something down on the back of a speech draft, and hands it to me. _Are you pregnant?_

_What? _"What?" My mind has gone completely blank. What? Pregnant? _Me_? "No, I'm not," I say, and suddenly I feel my throat going tight. "I'm… oh, my god. Am I?"

"Donna?" I see the concern in Joey's eyes; she reaches out and takes my hand. "Are you really surprised?"

Surprised? I'm stunned. Stunned. There's no way, no way I could be… and then, with a sinking feeling, I remember that trip to Argentina, how I forgot my pill at home, how I went without for a few days and when we got back… Oh, god. And, hang on, the last time I had my period, that must have been at least six weeks ago, I remember asking Lou for a tampon, but it was still warm outside then… Oh, _god_. And then, even though I mainly just feel like I've been run over by a train, my heart gives a little flutter, and this feeling runs through me, this feeling of… I don't even know. Love? Hope? Happiness? It's a good feeling, I think. Yes, a good feeling, as the thought hits home, reverberates in my brain like the sound of bells from far away. I might be having a baby, _we_ might be having a baby, with Josh's dimples and my eyes, and… and then panic surges through me. A _baby_? There's no way we're ready for a baby, we've only been a proper couple for not even two years, and the life we lead, here and there and everywhere and never out of the office before ten, there's no way, no way…

"What do I do now?" I ask Joey, trying and failing to keep the panic out of my voice. She raises her eyebrows at the look on my face and scribbles some more on the paper. _It's going to be fine._ I read. That might be too much to hope for right now. _Take a pregnancy test. Go see your doctor. Talk to Josh. _She underlines the word "fine" twice and smiles at me.

I can't do this. Thoughts are whirling in my head so quickly I can't keep them apart; I'm weightlessly gravitating somewhere between _This isn't happening_ and _I love you already_.

Casting around for something to say, something normal, I ask, "How did you know?"

"My sisters just had their first and second, respectively, and my assistant's pregnant, too," Joey explains. "I'm surrounded by pregnant women. You get good at guessing after a while." Kenny smirks as he says this last part. I can't help but smile a little, too.

"Anyway," I say, going into office mode, because it's the only way I can deal with things right now. "Uh, are you okay with the schedule the way it is? We can move that last speech outside if you'd be more comfortable, get more people there…"

"It's fine," Joey signs, frowning. "Thank you so much. We should get going." Then she says, to me, "You'll be okay?"

"Yeah, of course." With a brave attempt at a smile, I get up and see them out. Joey gives me a quick hug; Kenny just beams at me. The door shuts behind them, and I weakly sink onto my couch.

Pregnant. Me.

It's like the room is slowly being flooded with the meaning of that word.

It's not like I haven't thought about it before, deep down. In my heart, I've known forever that it was Josh or no one, and somehow, somewhere in the distant future I guess that thought included a family. It's not like the image of Josh, my Josh, bouncing a curly-haired baby on his knees, has never come up. But not so soon. Not now, now that life has just fallen into place so neatly. Not now.

Except it seems like it's happening now, right now, and there's nothing I can do about it. Life has a funny way of screwing me, Josh and me, actually, of picking me up and swooping us into a completely new and terrifying situation, just when a comfortable status quo has been achieved. I guess it's payback for the years of status quo we had, and never did anything with. But a baby? That just makes everything else we've gone through, Roselyn and Gaza and elections and That Night, as I've taken to calling it, seem tiny and insignificant in comparison. Maybe that's the scariest part. I take a deep breath, get up, carefully stretch. Chuck the onion bagel in the trash, I have to eat healthy now, what is it that pregnant women always eat? Folic acid. I have no idea where to get those.

In a strange, otherworldly sort of blur, I grab my bag, a few of the folders of my desk, my coat. I leave my office, telling Kerry I want to run a few errands before meeting Will for lunch. I walk out of the East Wing, down H Street. I stop at CVS, and buy gum, toothpaste, shaving cream for Josh, shampoo for me, a bottle of water. And a pregnancy test. The cashier doesn't comment, not even when I make a point of cramming the bright blue box into the very bottom of the plastic bag, almost tearing it. I stuff the bag into my tote and hurry along to Bistro Bis, where I'm meeting Will. It feels like carrying a bomb, or at least a boulder, around with you.

I mercifully arrive at Bistro Bis a little early, which gives me time to adjust to the prevalent smell of food around the place and pacify my stomach, as I nibble some French bread and reread Mrs. Santos' schedule. _Act normal_, I tell myself. _Just be calm and be yourself, the man's trying to win an election here. _

"Hey!" Will's leaning over me, with his usual awkward, huge grin.

"Hi!" I get up and give him a hug. We're war buddies, the two of us. He was never Josh, and he knew it and so did I, but those months on the Russell campaign trail, trying to use our war chest to build the image of a man who might be worth electing, trying to shut up our conscience, and drinking cheap liquor, created a strange bond between us.

Will sits. "How've you been? How was the summit?"

"I think I'm pregnant." Shit. I wasn't going to tell him that.

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind," I say hastily. "How's your campaign going? 48, that's great-"

"Did you say you were pregnant?"

"Sssssh! I said might. I said I might be pregnant. Possibly. But can we not…"

"But that's such good news, that's really-" Seeing the expression on my face, he falters. "Should I just shut up and let you talk to me about Helen Santos?"

"You really, really should." And incredibly enough, he does. I'm kind of disappointed, a little more fuss would have been nice, but I prefer this. The longer I don't have to deal with this, the better. We have lunch- he has lunch, I have bread and chamomile, even though I _really_ want a bacon cheeseburger, but that might not contain folic acid, so I don't risk it. We go over the schedule for next week, Will hands over his try at some of the First Lady's speeches –I'm going to have to get Ishmael to go over them later- and we discuss possible post-event spin. And just like that, we pay, and we're saying goodbyes.

"Donna?" Will bites his lip nervously and looks at me. "It's… great news, it really is. Even if you don't think so right now." I nod, sadly, and he continues. "I know it's scary as hell, but it's going to be fine. You're going to do fine." He opens his arms, and before I know what I'm doing, I dive into them. He smells comforting and clean, and whispers into my ear: "You love Josh, and he loves you, and you're both going to love this kid. And the rest, you'll figure out along the way. I promise."

"Thanks, Willie," I smile at him, feeling my throat constrict. "Really, just… thanks."

"You're welcome. I'll see you next week, right?"

I nod. "Good luck till then- give 'em hell, okay?"

"It's done. Bye."

I walk back to the office, dump the CVS bag in a corner and try very hard to forget about it. I rally my staff, hand Ishmael Will's drafts. I talk to Mrs. Santos; I talk to Amy in legislative liaison. By the time we can call it a night, it's actually night, and I'm so tired I don't even bother to call Margaret and see what Josh is up to, I just get a cab and go home.

The house is quiet and dark, and I'm so tired and so hungry, I completely forget about folic acid. I just pour myself a bowl of Josh's Apple Jacks (my stomach no longer protests) and crawl onto the couch, flicking on the TV and finding some old _Friends_ reruns. I snuggle into our huge plaid, and slurp my cereal, choosing to ignore the fact that I've left that CVS bag in my office, and I feel my eyelids drop…

Then, suddenly, I wake up as a pair of remarkably strong arms is heaving me up. A definite scent of dry-cleaning and dirt and something else remarkably pleasant envelops me, and I crack open an eye and see Josh, and I start to say something, I try to tell him about today and Joey, and what might be happening, but he shakes his head and shushes me, and carries me upstairs, and helps me change and makes sure I'm tucked in and kisses me good-night. And before I fall asleep again, I think that Will was right. We love each other, and we'll figure out the rest along the way.


	3. Chapter 3: Of Loss And Gain

And Now The World Is Ours

Chapter Three: Of Loss and Gain

I'm losing it. Seriously. If I didn't know this was hormonal and somehow, though I shudder to think, _normal_, I probably would have checked myself into the nuthouse by now. What, you don't believe me? For starters, I still haven't told Josh. About the baby, I still haven't told him. Not that I didn't want to (okay, I _didn't_ want to), but I just haven't had a chance. I was going to take that pregnancy test that morning, and then meet him for lunch, but then I got to the office and the cleaning staff had thrown out the bag. There was no way I was saying a word without the test, though, because how horrid would it be if I was wrong? He'd tease me for the rest of my life; I just couldn't face the prospect. Then one of "our" bills was dying in committee, something I wasn't exactly ungrateful for, and Jordan and me were on the Hill all day. I didn't buy a new test until the next morning, and then there was a coup in Bolivia and Josh was dealing with that and I was dealing with Josh, tired and still scared he wasn't good enough at this, still scared because he's not Leo. Mentioning the blue paper box in my desk drawer wasn't really an option. That was the weekend, basically, and then we left for California, at which point the stupid thing was back in my bag, because I knew I had to take it on the plane. Joey and Will would ask me about it, and while I am a crazy woman, they don't need to know that.

So I locked myself into a bathroom on the plane. And peed on a strip of paper, and sat very still, staring at the wall for three minutes. And there was a tiny, pale blue line.

_I'm having a baby. _

I slipped out of the bathroom, wiping my eyes, and hurried to the only place on Air Force One where you have some privacy- the Santos' private cabin. I was sure I had seen the First Lady talking to Ishmael, so I just sort of bolted in there, sank down on the floor and started crying. It was mainly relief –and the fact that I'm, you know, going crazy- but I just cried and cried. And then, to my horror, the door on the other side of the cabin opened, and out of the on-board shower walked Mrs. Santos, wrapped in a towel and staring at me with some displeasure.

"Donna, what are you doing… oh, my god, are you okay?"

I looked up at her, wiping my eyes, my voice, as always when I cry, high-pitched and breathy and hysteric. "Terrific." I tried to give a little laugh, though it came out more like the sound little fuzzy animals make when you step on them, and when I caught the First Lady's eye, I faltered. "I'm really sorry, I thought you were…"

"Hey, it's fine… is that a pregnancy test?!" I nodded weakly, thinking, _At least this spares me the very awkward conversation, in which I tell her I'm going to have to leave work for a few months to breed and feed a baby her husband's chief of staff and I technically conceived on government property._ Oh, yes, I failed to mention. It was late! He has couches in his office! I'm only human!

So now Mrs. Santos knew, too. And then I was on the phone with Amy about that bill, which happened to include Family Leave restrictions, and I was yelling at her and sort of lost it, and… yes. I told Amy Gardiner, _Josh's ex-girlfriend_, that I was having a baby. It was an accident; it's not like I _meant_ to tell her. And because we were on the phone, I didn't even get to see the look on her face. Also, while we were in California, I visited CJ and Danny and the twins, and I _obviously_ told them. Not as much the twins as CJ and Danny, mind.

And then we came back to DC on Friday, and I told Margaret. So that basically made Josh the only person who _didn't_ know, when it really should be the other way around.

I was kind of hoping one of them would ignore the fact that I had promised to kill them with my bare hands if they told Josh, and tell him. How is it my fault that basically the only friends I have are well trained in secret keeping from years of government service? So I'm a coward. I don't even know why I'm being so ridiculous about this, but I just have no idea what to say. And I'm scared –terrified- his reaction is going to be as inappropriate as mine. Because I can take anything less than supreme joy from me, but I'm not sure I can take it from him. Maybe all of this is just me; terrified we're going to screw this up, as we have a tendency to do. Eight years of working next to each other, wanting the same things but terrified of the other, the person we knew better than anyone else in the world, terrified that we were reading each other wrong- sometimes I'm just afraid we've managed to screw each other up for the future.

Did I mention I was going crazy?

Anyway. CJ has threatened that unless I tell Josh tonight, she's going to see to it that there's a huge ad in the _Times_ tomorrow morning doing it for me. So really, I have no choice. Blessed is she who has friends who will not stop from blackmail, and are married to maybe the most influential ex-journalist in America.

So that leaves me, on our couch with my prerequisite bowl of Apple Jacks (which has suddenly become the only food I _can_ stomach- further proof this is Josh Lyman's kid, although if a child of mine ends up eating rocklike hamburgers, I might actually, permanently lose it), waiting for him to show, so I can have the conversation that's going to change our lives forever.

I still don't know what to say. "I'm pregnant" sounds too…biological, "We're having a baby" too emotional, and "I'm having a baby" like I don't want him near it. I tried making notes. After about five minutes, I lit them on fire. CJ says Danny figured it out before she did, and Margaret and her husband were trying for a baby when Caroline came along, so for them it was easy. My only other source of reference is the _Friends_ episode Where Rachel Tells Ross, which was on TV last night when I got home (the god of television and emotionally confused pregnant women is sure having fun with me), and what can I say? Ten minutes of stunned silence, yeah, that's the result I was dreading before. Now I'm just afraid the call center people for my pill company are about to sue us both for verbal abuse.

"_Donna_?!" I get such a kick out of the fact the he still yells my name like we're back in the bullpen and I'm not bringing him coffee.

"I'm here," I call, wearily. He comes down the hall with all the grace of the Elephant Patrol, dumps his coat into a corner –sometimes, I wish I hadn't hung it for him for eight years, then I wouldn't have to deal with that now- and flops down next to me.

"Hey!" Leans over and kisses me, bless his oblivious little heart. I can't help feeling a little bit resentful. This is _all._ _His_. _Fault_. What? To fifty percent, it actually is!

"Hey." Oh god, this is hard. "Okay, I'm saying this now- the conversation we're about to have, it's going to mainly come out of the swapping-votes, dropping-underwear part of my mind. I mean… not the content, but…you know."

"I like that part of your mind." He reaches over and absent-mindedly starts playing with my fingers. Damn him, I want to kiss him already. Which would be a lot more fun than what I'm doing now. He tries to pull me close, but I wiggle out of his arms and sit up. "Donna, you okay?"

"Okay is an interesting word choice."

"What?"

"I'm saying, you ask me if I'm okay, when…"

"Donna, what's the matter?" Oh, shit, he looks worried now- not worried as much as his signature everyone-I-ever-loved-died-on-me-can-you-please-not-look. "Is it the stomach thing? Are you sick?"

"It's the stomach thing, yes, among other things, but I'm not… sick."

"Well, if you're not sick then… God, Donna, is it the PTSD thing? From Germany, were you…"

"What?" Why, oh why am I not dating Danny Concannon? Well, he likes CJ and I don't like scratchy beards, that's why, but… "No, Josh, it's not PTSD."

"Okay, good. Then what is it?" How can someone so smart be so…incredibly _not_? "And you're really not sick? I read something about a thing, like a tropical virus or something, and-"

"For the love of God, Josh, I don't have a tropical virus, I'M PREGNANT!" Well, that came out wrong. Silence fills the room, except for the whirring of the muted TV and a car outside. "I'm pregnant," I repeat. "That's what I was trying to tell you, that's why I've been throwing up. We're… we're having a baby." I, somehow, resist the urge to keep talking, although babbling would make this moment infinitely more bearable. I can't look at Josh, I can't see my panic reflected in his face, I can't…

"Donna?" His voice, so soft and vulnerable as he takes my hand. "Really?" And I have to look, now, and it's a good thing I do, because at my nod, it's like watching the sun rise at warp speed, because that look on Josh's face, pure, unabashed, shameless joy, it's warming and it's comforting and it's perfect. _Joshua, why did I ever doubt you?_ He needs his pushs and his shoves, but when it matters, he gets it right. _I'm sayin', if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer. And if you don't think I miss you every day…_

And I start to cry.

"Hey, hey, hey, what?" That confused, concerned look on his face just makes me bawl even harder.

"It's just," sob, sob, "It's just you're… _happy_," I manage. And I wasn't. And I'm still not sure I am, and somehow, that makes me the most horrible person in the world. And how did I dare judge him, how did I dare be afraid his reaction wouldn't be what is clearly the normal one? How are two people this emotionally messed up supposed to bring a kid into the world that doesn't need therapy starting on his first birthday? Amidst more sobs: "You're so happy!"

"Of course I'm happy!" A beat. "Aren't you?"

I sigh, drying my eyes with a corner of his shirt. "Of course I'm happy," I smile, and I know that somewhere, it's true. I _am_ happy. "But I was… other things. I am. Other things."

"Scared?"

"More like freaked out of my wits."

"Oh, Donna." And this time, I let him pull me close; I let him wrap his arms, his big, strong Josh-arms around me. "Only reason why I'm not freaked is 'cause… I don't believe this. Yet. You're serious? You're… we're having… really?"

"Really, really."

"Holy shit."

"You feeling some of that freaked-out-ness there?"

"Yeah." He gently nuzzles my head. "Still happy though." I cuddle closer towards him, wiping my cheeks on his sleeve. "Thanks for the snot, there."

"Get used to it."

"I guess I'll have to." Another pause, and then he gently shifts me into a sitting position, facing him. "I don't believe you have… our baby is in there!" He clumsily puts his hand onto my completely flat belly, and I almost have to laugh.

"Our baby," I say, testing the words on my tongue. "God, that feels weird."

"I know. But guess what, I read a memo about family planning a few weeks ago, and they said that reluctant mothers make better mothers."

"You're making that up?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

Much, much later, I wake up with a start, as though someone's slapped me in the face. Confused, I pry open my eyes, and realize what's woken me up is the absence of a warm, faintly snoring body next to me. "Josh?" I'm sure it's still nighttime, so where is he? I prop myself up sleepily, casting my eyes around our darkened bedroom, the familiar furniture eerily edgy in the dark. The room is empty, and the bathroom light isn't on. But there's a faint glow coming from downstairs. _Okay…_

With a sigh, I get out of bed, shivering in the relative cold of the room, and huddle myself into our quilted bedspread. My feet tap gently on our paneled floor, and I slip down the narrow staircase carefully in the dark. The kitchen light is on, and there's Josh, sitting on the floor in his PJs, staring into space with a bowl of cereal next to him. He looks up, and smiles at me as I stand in the doorframe.

"Hey," I grumble, squinting against the light. "What are you doing?"

He shrugs, gesturing for me to sit down. I oblige, snuggling myself more tightly into the quilt around my shoulders, leaning my head against his arms. "Josh, what time is it?"

He smiles. "Funny you should ask."

I glance at the oven clock- it's 3:11 AM. "It's _late_."

"It was 3:03 when I woke up," Josh says, by way of an explanation. And then, softly, "It's Election Day." He's right- the polls open in a few hours for the midterms, but… and then I get it.

"For you are a man of occasion." Election Day, or rather Before-Election Night. If I had to pick a day that would define us, define Josh, it would have to be the wee hours of the morning of Tuesday following the first Monday of November. Ten years ago, sitting on a fence of the Bartlet's farm in New Hampshire with Sam, Margaret, Ginger, Toby, CJ and a bag full of alcohol, waiting for this night to be over. Eight years ago, the stoop of Josh's old house, how I had to try so very hard not to break down all night, because that had been my silent prayer, my deal with the heavens, after Roslyn_. If he makes it to the midterms, he'll be fine. Just let him make it to the midterms._ Six years ago, all of us trying to pretend we weren't worried, weren't nervous, and then playing Monopoly half the night at CJ's house, this house, in this kitchen, to take our mind off things. Four years ago, an election nobody seemed to care about, because we were sure we'd lose, anyway. And two years ago… I grin at Josh.

"Got there yet?"

"Yeah."

"I can't believe it's only been two years." He rubs my arms. "It feels like we've… you know. Forever."

"Well, it was kind of waiting to happen forever, so… you know." Did I really just say that? Candidness is so not my strong point, especially with Josh, as the past week or so proves. Still, it is true.

"Yeah," Josh smirks, "But I guess, it shouldn't feel so…normal."

"It didn't feel normal then," I remind him with a smirk. "Remember?"

He laughs, tracing circles onto my bare arms with his fingers, rough like sandpaper around the edges, soft at the tips, and I shiver. "I _do_ remember." He reaches out and kisses me, and for the record, I'm never, ever going to get used to this.

"Plus," I say as we break apart, "I think normal isn't exactly a word we'll be throwing around in the next couple of months, huh?"

"Yeah." He laughs, softly. And there it is, the look I was dreading for almost two weeks: confusion and fear, like I've been feeling it. And that peculiar Josh-look, survivor's guilt and unreleased pain and, somewhere in there, a million tiny regrets and the weight of the world on his shoulders.

But it's okay. Because he's still smiling, smiling that shy, secretive smile that was always _mine_ –never Mandy's, never Amy's- and our fingers are interlaced, and we're sitting in our kitchen at three in the morning, huddled into a gigantic quilt. And we're Josh and Donna, as we've always been. Hanging on to each other as life has its way with us. Pulling and carrying each other along the way, holding onto each other, with interlaced fingers, in darkness of hospitals and empty, always to be empty, hotel rooms; under the fluorescent light of the GW Emergency Room on Christmas Eve, in a ballroom, winning an election and losing so much more. Five Election Days, ten years. A million moments, and it never got normal, between us. Even these days, the domesticity of waking up and going to sleep next to each other, isn't normal. And what's about to come, that certainly won't be normal. But we'll do what we do best, be Josh and Donna. Always, somehow, holding on.

That's the plan, then. Keep holding on. Keep being Josh and Donna. And, somehow, start becoming parents.

Sounds like a winning strategy if I ever heard one.


	4. Interlude 1 : Does An Angel?

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Four: Interlude- Does An Angel Contemplate My Fate?**

He does what he does best in times of –well, not crisis; this isn't crisis per say- times of, as Toby would have put it, peak frustration, anyway. He stares into space and yells at innocent people and breaks things.

This morning, he's yelled at his television about pre-midterm coverage; and then a guy from DoD who wanted… something, he doesn't even remember, but it was annoying and his timing was unfortunate, to say the least. Now, he's just kind of staring into the corner of his office, absent-mindedly shredding an old briefing memo into little tiny pieces while his mind plays classical music, Joanie's favorite pieces, _Ave Maria_ and that Bach Fugue that sounds like the forces of evil ganging up on you.

You take a look at him, Josh Lyman, so young and cocky (though, god, not so young anymore) and you think he's the kind of guy who's definiton of "classical" involves Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, and you'd be right. Except this guy had an older sister once, who would let him sit on her bed, in her room, and allow him to join her as she listened to Bach and Schubert. Who would place him on her bony, wiggly lap, smelling faintly of soap and strongly of dust, and explain to him that that, that's an organ, and that, that's what's called a fugue. He remembers a benefit concert they all had to go to, during the first Bartlet campaign, and how he ended up teaching them all a lesson in basic music. _An orchestra looks like half a Frisbee_, he explained, echoing her voice from so long ago, _strings in the front, because they're like the big bullies on the orchestra playground, woodwinds, brass_. "How the hell do you remember that?" CJ asked. But he doesn't forget these things; he couldn't, if he wanted to. Which he doesn't, because if you've only got nine years' worth of memories of the person who used to hold up your universe, you're careful with them.

His fingers never stop, new page, rip, rip, rip, as his mind, unbidden, replays a thirty-five year old conversation he didn't know he remembered.

_It's summer, he's five and Joanie's twelve, and they're in the backyard. She's wearing bottle green shorts and pigtails, and she looks crazy and wild and beautiful. He feels special- she's been calling him baby a lot recently, and not playing with him much, so this is an honor. He's got his doctor kit out, and after a few rounds of his as the doctor, and her inventing gruesome and interesting injuries, she says she's a woman about to have a baby, and sticks his teddy bear under his T-shirt. _

"_What are you doing?" He asks her, in confusion and shock. _

"_Jooooosh," she says in her best Big Sister voice, "That's where babies come from, from their Mommies' tummies. That's where you came from."_

"_From Mommy's tummy?" He giggles; the idea is so absurd. "But I wouldn't fit! I'm so big!"_

"_You weren't big when you were a baby. You were so small; you were like Teddy. That small." _

"_Was not!"_

"_Were too!"_

"_Was not!"_

"_Were too! I _remember_, so there!" She sticks his tongue out of him; he crosses his eyes at her. But he knows that he can never win the "I can remember" argument, so he grandly ignores it and moves on in the game._

"_Okay," he says in his doctor-voice, rumbly and with a funny accent, like their doctor, Dr. Finkelstein. "Mrs. Lyman, you're about to have your baby. Uh, why don't you lie down?" He takes the plastic stethoscope and pretends to listen for her heart. "Okay, uh…"_

"_You have to check the baby's, too," Joanie stage whispers. _

_He holds the stethoscope to the crumple mass under her T-shirt, then looks helplessly at her again, and whispers, "How do we get it out?"_

"_I don't know," Joanie says, in a way that makes him sure that she _does_ know, but thinks he's to little to be in on the secret. He's about to pout, but she comes up with something cool: "Maybe with scissors?" _

"_Yeah!" He takes the scissors, meant for cutting bandages, out of his Doctor Kit, and pretends to cut open her T-shirt. Then he carefully takes Teddy out from under her T-shirt. "Look Mrs. Lyman, you have a baby."_

"_Oh, Dr. Lyman, thank you so much! I couldn't be happier! Is it a boy or a girl?" _

"_Um," he says, "I think you can pick. What would you like?"_

"_A boy! I can name him after my wonderful brother Josh!"_

"_Oh," he says, reddening, "That's nice of you. Here's your baby." _

_He hands her the bear, or tries to, but she stage-whisper-directs him: "You're doing it wrong! You have to kind of hold their heads with your arm, or you'll hurt them."_

_He tries to, but drops the "baby" facedown onto the grass. "Oh, Dr. Lyman! My baby, is he hurt?" _

_They stick a band-aid on the bear's nose and check his heartbeat, and then decide he's fine. Then Joanie, obviously bored, ruffles his hair affectionately and wanders back to her books, humming a piece of music as usual._

The depressing thing is, he's not much less clueless about the whole baby-thing now then he was then.

Last night- last night, when Donna told him, he was so surprised and he was so happy. He's not sure why he was so happy, not sure why he ceased to be. Last night, in the dark, on their comfortable couch and on their familiar kitchen floor, all he could think of was Donna, with those watery, hopeful eyes, and a baby in her arms; and that image seemed good and right and wonderful. But against the harsh light of a washed-out Washington sky, he takes one look at his morning schedule, and he knows that this cannot be a good idea. He doesn't want to be the kind of parent who only sees his kids on the weekends; in this, at least, he does not want to be like his father. But does he even want to be a parent at all? The idea of a little person taking over his life, constantly _wanting_ –love and bedtime stories and attention and college tuition- he's not sure he finds that so appealing.

_Please, Josh_, says a voice, so crystal clear for a moment he swears it's really there, and he raises his head, but of course the room is empty. All he can hear is one of the Brandenburg Concertos, but of course, that's not really there, either. He stares at the mess of shreds of papers on his desk, and rubs his temples. He's going to screw up this kid. There's no way he wouldn't, he's such a fucking mess.

_Would you get over yourself? _There she is again, ten years old, with a laugh, like light and fast like the music she would play for him, _allegro means happy, Josh, happy music_, and there's an impatient sigh, and he drops his head into his arms. _This is not a bad thing, you moron. Donna's having a baby. This is great, it's going to be so much fun. _

He wants to tell her to shut up, but how do you argue with your annoying, dead big sister? You don't. You _can't_. And anyway, she's gone again. He slips open his desk drawer and there, in an envelope, is the only photograph he has of her. It's her school picture, her last, and under her bland smile and cute sweater, in her eyes there's a hint of mischief, and he sharply breathes in as his fingers trace the familiar outline of her face, faded because of the millions of times he's done this, in times of- not crisis, really, but close enough.

_You get to do this; _there she is again._ I'm so jealous because you get to have this, so would you please just get over yourself and enjoy it? _He smiles at her picture, and mouths "Sorry" before carefully slipping it back into the envelope, into the drawer.

His eyes find the picture of Donna, not framed or anything but taped against his lamp, the only place where it's always visible over the perpetual mess on his desk. She's smiling at him with that half-knowing, half-naïve grin of hers; her eyes slightly widened, a hint of a pose and a lot of self-conscious, haywire ridicule. He tries to imagine her with a baby, carrying it or whatever, and the image he can come up with is not a particularly realistic one, probably, but the look on Donna's face, that he knows he got right. So much love, he's never met someone who can carry that much love in her face, and who just does- she never hides it, never did, not when she was tying his ties and handing him briefing memos, she never bothered to hide it. He just never really trusted it, because it seemed too easy, too obvious. And so, in the end, if it was painful and racked with regrets, it was only because he never trusted the perfection right in front of him. He stares at the picture again_, because he never trusted the perfection right in front of him_, well, there's no way that's happening to him again.

There was nothing wrong with his initial reaction, was there? Joanie was right, this is a good thing. They're having a baby! With Donna's love and hopefully her temper too, and he's going to need to quickly figure out which part of him he wants his child to get. The choices they're going to have to make are already making him dizzy- names and schools and what to teach and curfew times, and how do you get your kids to like you, anyway? Surely it doesn't just happen? The breadth of what he doesn't know hits him like a blow in the face, but it's not a bad feeling, it's a challenge- it's a ten-year-old voice saying "_Betcha you can't deal with this," _and he can't do anything but say "_Can too_!"

And he can, too. And he will.

His phone rings, and Margaret informs him an Alexander Rodriguez is on the phone to discuss the President's Council on Physical Fitness. A-Rod? Really? He tells her to put him thorugh and answers his phone with his most powerful voice: "This is Josh Lyman."

"Hey, Josh." That doesn't sound like A-Rod, in fact, it sounds like…

"CJ, you gotta get out of the line, I'm supposed to be talking to-"

"Josh, did you honestly think A-Rod was gonna call?"

_Huh_. "I'm going to fire Margaret," he mutters.

"You can't. She's the only who knows what the hell you're doing tomorrow morning at three PM."

That's an unfortunately good point, and he knows better than to argue, so he grandly drops it. "So what can I do for you, Claudia Jean?"

"Oh," CJ replies airily, "I'm just checking in, just to see how things are… you know, seeing how you're doing, and…" _Hang on._

"She told you, didn't you?"

"Yes," CJ says, sounding guilty. "She told me. Josh, are you okay?"

"CJ, I swear to God, I'm fine," he says, feeling nettled. "Why won't anyone believe me?"

"I don't know, Josh, but usually when I rank my friends by degree of messed-up-ness, you make the top three."

"Thanks."

"I'm saying, if you're not okay, we can—"

"CJ, I'm fine, I'm great, I'm happy and excited and everything; it's _Donna_ who's freaking out." He pauses. CJ is a force of nature, but a comforting one, maybe he can… He bites his lip. "CJ, why isn't she happy?"

"Josh," he can tell by her voice she's smiling, "Josh, of course she's happy. But she likes the life she's living now, she loves her job- can you blame her for not wanting that to change?"

"I guess not," he mulls this over. "Were you? Happy?"

"If you're asking if I was as much as a mess as she is- yes."

That's comforting, at least. If the news she was pregnant could throw CJ –graceful, rock-strong CJ- he can trust he'll have Donna back soon.

"Give her some time, Josh. And take care of her a bit, you're going to have to do that for awhile."

"Yeah?"

"Make sure she eats right- no junk food, less coffee, no alcohol. Lots of grains and dairy. And make sure you guys go to the doctor- soon. And make sure she's not testing her limits at work, she's going to get tired more quickly."

"Okay, yeah, I can do that." Oh, god. If this day ends up with him calling Donna's OBGYN, well…

"And be nice to her. Half of this is your doing, so just… be nice."

"Spoil her?"

"If she lets you." He laughs, he has to, because she won't let him, but she'll be happy he tried. "Josh, I gotta go, Nellie's waking up from naptime."

"I guess those words are actually gonna mean something to me soon?"

"Trust me."

"Bye, CJ. And thanks, for everything."

"Anytime. Good luck, okay?"

"Yeah." He hears the pattering of feet in the background, the squeals of laughter from CJ's little daughter, and then a soft click as she hangs up the phone. With a huge smile, he yells for Margaret and asks her to reserve a table for two at _Lucio's_, the sweet neighborhood restaurant around the corner from them.

He pulls out the photograph of Joanie again, and whispers "Thanks, sis." And then he thanks whomever responsible that, with CJ Cregg, he got another, just as bothersome and just as wonderful, big sister.


	5. Chapter 5: Offering This Simple Phrase

And Now The World Is Ours

**Chapter Five: And So I'm Offering This Simple Phrase**

You'd think your life would change rapidly once you're growing another human being inside you, but, bizarrely, my life is pretty much going by routine. With a few highlights, our first doctor's appointment being one of them. Josh, sitting in my OBGYN's office looking mildly tortured, until my fabulous Dr. Walsh –all redhead hottie on the outside and comforting mother goddess on the inside- showed him the first ultrasound of Guppy, as we've nicknamed our baby, much like said fish but with a strong heartbeat, echoing through the room as steady as anything; and we were both humbled and shut up by the miracle in front of us.

Thanksgiving at Ruth's in Florida was another highlight. While Josh's mother usually makes up for her type-A-Jewish-mother-personality with a quirky, sparkling sense of humor only CJ can rival, when we "dropped the B-bomb" (Josh's words, _not_ mine), she broke into very predictable tears and gave me a hug so careful you might think I was made of porcelain all of a sudden.

Seeing as we'd missed Thanksgiving in Madison, much to the chagrin of my mother, who loves Josh almost as much as I do, we decided to fly up there for my Dad's birthday in mid-December. I had wanted to break the news face-to-face, and was freaking out over a good moment to do so, but then I was helping Mom in the kitchen just after we'd arrived, and she said, calm as anything, "Honey, when were you going to tell me about my first grandchild?" So that was that. I spent the rest of the weekend showing Josh around Madison, walking around the streets I'd grown up in while he tried –and failed- to bite back his hilarity, hiding his pager and eating my mom's sweet potatoes with marshmallows, which had temporarily replaced cereal as the only food I could keep down. When we flew back, I couldn't help but think that the next time we made the journey; we'd probably have a little person between us.

Back in DC, life revolved around recess appointments and a possible Lame Duck session of the House, plus Christmas shopping and decorating. Josh protested, or tried to, when I made him recover my giant box of Christmas décor from the basement, but when I threatened I'd just have to get it myself, the "I'm a pregnant woman, Josh, you're really going to let me do that?" argument won out. Once our house looked like someone had emptied the Christmas Issue of _Martha Steward Living_ over it, and Josh was complaining because he felt his Judaism was not accurately represented, I went out and bought a set of Hanukah-themed ornaments, a set of dreidels and a truly hideous stocking emblazed with the image of Judas Maccabee. In midst of all this domestic bliss came news of our HUD secretary stepping down for medical reasons, and we had to scramble to find, vet, and appoint someone new before Christmas.

Meanwhile, I was getting more or less helpful tips from practically every woman around me, including an email from Amy reminding me –rather brusquely- that if I wanted to apply for extended family leave I would have to do it soon. Does the fact that this gave a little bit of vindictive pleasure really make me a horrible person?

The one thing nobody seems to dare ask us –not the President (whom Josh told pretty much immediately, even though he of course already knew through the spousal channels of communication), not the First Lady, not our parents, not our friends- is whether we're going to get married now.

Thank _God_. Because I have no idea what the answer to that question would be.

It's not like I don't want to marry Josh. Obviously. Even without this kid on the way, it's pretty much understood that if either of us can help it, we're staying together until we're old and gray. That's so not the issue. But- I don't know- I don't want it to be the thing where Guppy asks me about my wedding, I have to say: "It was kind of a hurry because we wanted to get it over with before anyone realized you existed." You know?

And suddenly its Christmas Eve and we're having dinner and celebrating the fact that my stomach has finally settled down for good. We just had our second Doctor's appointment yesterday, and Dr. Walsh did say we were moving into second trimester country. We also had another ultrasound, and the newest printout is tacked to our fridge, and it's the coolest thing you've ever seen- our Guppy has arms and legs now, sort of, and you can see the spine.

We've turned on the Christmas tree lights, and lit the last Chanukah candle on the Menorah Ruth sent us last week –_Now that you're going to be a family, you should have this_, she wrote, and reduced me to very predictable tears- and Frank Sinatra's crooning about chestnuts roasting on an open fire in the background. I consider surreptitiously pinching myself suspecting I've found my way into someone else's corny excuse for a fantasy, but then snuggle closely against Josh, deciding that even if that's all it is, I never, ever want it to end. He hands me a spoon and balances a tub of Cookie Dough ice cream between his knees with a smile. "So this is our last Christmas with just the two of us, for the next, what twenty two years, probably?"

"God," I half-laugh, half-groan, "don't say it like that!" I lick my spoon thoughtfully. "How many have we had, exactly?"

"Last year," he says, counting them off on his fingers. Yes, last year, we barely made it out of bed all of Christmas Day. "And the year before that," he smiles. "That's two."

"There's one more," I remind him. "After…" After Roslyn. In that horrible ER, and then at my place, me, trying to coax him to eat or sleep or at least look me in the eye. Falling asleep in the early hours of Christmas morning, on my couch, Josh's head loosely in my lap and his bandaged hand holding on onto mine, like it was life or at least sanity he was clinging to with all his might. When we woke up it was already getting dark again outside, snow was falling in fluffy white flakes, and we took a walk, without speaking, until he put his arms around me so tightly that it hurt and whispered a hoarse, pressed "thank you" into my ear.

"Yeah," Josh says. "I hadn't forgotten that one. Ever." We smile at each other, and I'm touched by the magic of not having to say, because we're remembering exactly the same thing, anyway. Because we know that no matter what's to come, we share a way, a long way, of what's behind us.

"Huh," Josh says, thoughtfully scraping off some more ice cream, losing his hands in my hair, his fingertips ever-so-gently fluttering over the back of my neck "Is that really all?"

"Yeah." What the hell was I doing for almost ten years, not having this? I know it was never that simple, and I know why, but in moments like these, it becomes almost impossible to remember the line, as impregnable as the Berlin wall, that we couldn't cross. In this house, living this life, with Josh planted so firmly by my side in a way that isn't fraught with complications and girlfriends and things unsaid; the time before–the doubt, the pain, the moments of sordid brilliance- seems as distant as last year's dreams.

"Hey," Josh laughs through another spoonful of cookie dough, "remember Jack Reese?"

I frown, but can't help giggling. "Yeah, I do."

"God, he was a sleazebag."

"Josh! He was not!"

"That Christmas was horrible," Josh continues, as though I never interrupted him. "I was doing the thing with the Middle East when all I really wanted to do, was, well… you know."

"Handcuff me to you so I didn't spend Christmas with Jack, who was actually a very nice guy?"

"Pretty much."

"Kinky boy," I snort.

"Hey, I was in pain! What did you ever see in him, anyway?"

"God, I don't know." Which is true, I can't even clearly remember his face –while I still recall ten-year-old conversations with Josh perfectly. Odd. "He was cute, I guess, and nice, and…"

"…and _such_ a sleazebag!"

"He was not!"

"He screwed you, and was so only looking out for his own good when he- what?" He breaks off, seeing the expression on my face.

_Oh, Josh_. "Joshua Lyman, when are you going to get that I picked you?"

"What?"

"When are you going to understand that I didn't pick Phil –_Freeride_-, or Cliff Calley, or Jack Reese or, god forbid, Bob Russel- I picked _you_."

"I know that," he assures me, though faintly.

"You really don't," I point out to him. "And it's crazy that you still haven't gotten there because I'm sitting here with our baby growing inside me and you're still terrified I'm going to walk out and leave you."

"I'm not-" He tries to interrupt me, but I'm not finished yet.

"I'm going to say this one more time, Josh. You're my guy. I picked you. And I love you and we're having a baby and this is as good as it gets, so get used to it, would you?"

He's staring at me, transfixed, and then he says, "Don't move," and scrambles up from the couch. I can hear him rummaging around upstairs, and moments later, he returns, handing me that hideous Judas Maccabee stocking. "Open it," he prods. "I wasn't going to give it to you till tomorrow morning, but…"

Wonderingly, I untie the burgundy cord and stick my hand inside the stocking. My hand closes around a small box, small enough to fit into my palm. I pull it out- it's a tiny wooden crate with an ivory and mother-of-pearl inlay; it looks just like the ones they sell in Gaza. I look up at Josh, who's suddenly gone pale, and I start to suspect. "Josh…?"

"Open it," he repeats, quietly. I pry open the box with my fingernail, and there, shining against the polished wood, is a ring. Silver, with a clear diamond sparkling up at me like a smile, like a twinkle of an eye.

An engagement ring.

For me.

"I'm your guy," Josh says, his voice steady, "and you're mine. Let's make it official."

Yes. Yes, let's make it official, let's turn seven years of banter and a year of pain and a year of reconciliation and two years of freakish domesticity, let's turn that into a lifetime. Let's make it official, let's tell it to the world that he's my Josh and always has been and always will be mine; let's give the gossipers on the Hill a happy ending to talk about. Yes, let's grow old together, with this kid and maybe some more, let's spend the rest of our lives together, with me eating his fries; and him ordering extra ones for me anyway. Let's build a life together, a life to take pictures of that fill scrapbooks and photo albums. Pictures of children and vacations and houses, and faces that grow more wrinkled in every picture, but never stop looking happy. Yes, let's jump into eternity armed with nothing but each other and this tub of melted ice-cream in ours, let's embrace each other and every single stupid cliché we've become, let's live all those happy endings in the old Meg Ryan movies that have reduced me to tears more than once in the past few weeks. Lets start the rest of our lives, let's live the part they never tell you about in the movies, the happily ever after, with diapers and Christmases and all the things still to come I can't even imagine yet.

I look at Josh and he can see exactly what I'm thinking, and he beams at me, and I smile back, and then we're in each other's arms, with a tub of melted ice cream spilling over our couch, but we don't, we _refuse_ to care, because we're going to have the rest of our lives to clean it up. The rest of our lives.

"Yes?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

And kisses everywhere, my hair and my mouth and the extremely smooth skin on his left temple, and we're laughing at our good fortune, at the love we've found, despite everything, and soon I'm giggling and gasping and drawling and whispering the word "_Yes_" because that's my answer. And I want the whole world to know, that Josh is my guy and I'm his. "Yes, yes, yes," I say, again and again and again, and I'm laughing and crying and we're staring at each other, wondering, wide-eyed like kids on Christmas morning, at the surreality of it, all the great, great love that we've found, at the life we have found with each other.

And then neither of us says much for quite awhile.


	6. Chapter 6: His Sabbath

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Six: His Sabbath**

_God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man's grave is his Sabbath. _

_-_John Donne

A few days after Christmas, I wake up feeling hungry –make that famished- in the wee hours of the morning. I lie awake for a few minutes, snuggled comfortably into my comforter and the narrow space between Josh's chin and shoulder into which my head fits perfectly, trying to go back to sleep, but Guppy is adamant, and apparently, _hungry_. Sighing, I crawl out of bed and slip a giant Berkley sweatshirt, once CJ's, over the skimpy negligee I'm wearing. Yeah, a negligee- all pink satin and poor Josh's misguided attempt at a proper, couple-y Christmas present, which cracked me up more than anything else. Almost.

I tiptoe into the kitchen and put on the kettle for tea (the combined forces of Josh and Dr. Walsh having assured me that my coffee-drinking days are over) before heading over to the pantry. I consider cereal, I consider scrambled eggs, but then decisively reach for a slice of angel food cake and a jar of peanut butter. "I love you," I mumble to Guppy, celebrating an excuse to finally follow all my gross culinary cravings. I sprinkle some brown sugar on the peanut butter, put teabags in the pot, grab a handful of gingersnaps in case I feel peckish on the way and my old, old White House coffee mug (stained for eternity, the seal barely legible from countless times in the dishwasher)- somehow, I manage to balance all of that into the living room, where I settle onto the couch. I happily munch on my food as wet, ghastly snow falls outside, lazily flicking through last week's _Time_ magazine. I wouldn't wake up Josh if I could without hiring a High School Marching Band- this is a moment for a me, a moment, to, possibly, surreptitiously, start looking at wedding dresses online.

Ring.

Damn it. The phone is ringing, ruining my moment of sanity like a pager going off at the movies. Ring, ring. Where the hell is that stupid thing? I scramble around the room and finally unearth it under a pile of books, presents from poor, delusional people who think we have time to read.

"Donna Moss?"

"Hey, Donna. It's me."

"CJ?" It must be CJ, caller ID says so, but this doesn't sound like the Mistral of a woman I've loved like a sister for ten years at all; this sounds like the little girl I've seen on pictures, hanging on the walls of this house a million years ago, a little girl with too long legs, squashed precariously between her older brothers, looking shy and confused, and yet, smarter than all of them.

"Donna, it's…" So small that voice, like something you'd find in the children's section of a library, but not a White House Press Briefing, or, god, the Situation Room.

"CJ, are you okay?" I bite my lip twisting the hypnotically pink ribbons of my negligee into tight ropes, trying to repress the knowledge that she's not okay, that something is horribly wrong; trying to repress the images of Danny, in a hospital bed, their house on fire, little Nellie facedown in her crib, not breathing. Instinctively, my hand flies to the tiny curve of my own stomach. "CJ?" I prod, although really, I don't want to know, shaking my head violently, but the fear won't leave, now that I've presented myself to be such a willing victim.

"It's the president." I know she's not talking about Matt Santos. "He… he died early this morning."

My mind comes to a screeching, horror-struck halt, breaks crash, thoughts without seatbelts crash through the windshields of my comprehension… "He died?"

"Yes," CJ says, and her voice grows stronger, not weaker, because this is what she does, she _briefs_, "He got sick after Christmas, the flu, and his temperature kept rising and…"

"Oh, my god." The peanut butter in my mouth has turned into sandpaper. "Did he, was he…"

"He can't have suffered much," CJ answers the question I couldn't possibly have asked, because it would have been the same question from then, from before, _Is the president in a lot of pain and discomfort_ I asked Toby, foolish enough to think all MS was, was a terrible sickness, not a cause for election fraud, not a massive PR problem.

Josh appears in the doorway, his T-shirt sticking up at odd angles, blinking and looking half-asleep. God, Josh. I can't be the one to tell you this, again, after your dad, after Leo, I can't be the one robbing you of the last father you had left, I _can't_.

"You guys should maybe fly up to New Hampshire," CJ says and I wrench myself back into sanity, or what I have left of it. "I'm going, too. To help with…the funeral. It won't be for a few days, but Abbey and… we should be there."

"Yes," I say, at once. "Yes, of course."

"I'll see you in a few hours then, I guess."

"Yeah, CJ, what about you, are you…"

"I should pack," she cuts me off. "I'll see you." There's a soft click, and she's gone. I let my arm holding the phone sink down, and as I do, the rest of my body sort of sinks, too, as though the weight of the news I've just heard is pulling me to the ground, until my whole body sinks to the floor in shock, until I'm lying down with my eyes closed.

"Donna?" Josh is back; a whiff of fresh coffee accompanies his footsteps, his concerned voice. Slowly I count to ten.

"Something's happened," I say, to the inside of my eyes, the flying sparks of black and purple and red. "It's the president, Josh. President Bartlet." Reluctantly, I open my eyes, prop myself up, look at him. My voice gets caught in my throat because there's no justice in the world that this has happened and I'm the one to tell him, on what was supposed to be day four of our post-engagement bliss, that one of the giants holding up our world since day one has crumbled, is gone. "Josh, he died this morning. Something about the flu, and his temperature, and…"

Josh just stares at me. "What?"

I'm not saying it again, I _can't_, and anyway, I know he's already understood, because his face is contorting into a grimace somewhere between numb disbelief and raw pain. He drops himself onto the floor next to me, and I gently lower my own body, so that we're lying next to each other, breaths mingling and noses almost touching as I turn my face towards his.

"The flu?"

"CJ says it was the fever, really; I guess his immune system was weak, and…"

"But he's President Bartlet. Presidents aren't taken down by the _flu_." The desperation in his voice makes me want to throw up. There's a horrible, horrible silence, and I feel my eyes filling up with tears. I turn my head towards the ceiling as they spill down my cheeks. I haven't seen President Bartlet since Mrs. Bartlet's birthday party almost a year ago; I skipped the library dedication in November because I'd just come back from China with the first lady and was just too jetlagged and tired, not to mention still in the throws of morning sickness. Last I saw him, he was laughing, making jokes, insisting I dance with him. It seems impossible that the world could exist without him in it.

I turn my head towards Josh, who's looking up at the ceiling with a helpless expression on his face. "But he looked so good at the dedication ceremony," he stammers.

"I know," I whisper. "But Josh, he was sick."

"He was fine!" He characteristically rubs his temples, staring blankly at me. "I don't understand how he just...leaves."

Oh, Josh. I gently, wordlessly, pry his hands away from his temples and take them in mine, rubbing them gently as a deep silence falls. It's like being underwater, floating along, holding on to Josh in the middle of salty, unfamiliar water pressing down on my skin. This is nothing like when Leo died, in a night so full of raw emotion the memory alone could make me gasp. This is like those horror movies, when a charming village full of innocent little houses in a lush green countryside is suddenly trampled by a giant dinosaur; or smashed by a bomb.

"Then funeral, when…" Josh asks, randomly.

"Not for a few days."

"Oh." He sighs, then, "Are we…?"

"CJ said she was flying up today; I told her we'd come."

"Yeah. We should."

"We will."

Neither of us moves, neither of us start to pack or call the airport or get dressed. We both lie there, staring into the branches of our Christmas tree, the scorch mark on the ceiling, a relic from a dinner party of CJ's where Will accidentally threw a lit match into the air. I remember when we told the President he story next morning, how he laughed and mumbled something about hiring incendiary speechwriters for their language.

My stomach gives a loud grumble, and even though I feel sick, I know I have to eat something. "We never told him about Guppy," I say, sadly, as the realization that he'll never know hits home. I get up, grab the rest of my angel food cake; swallow without even tasting, hardly even chewing. "I'll go pack? And see if we can get flights?" Josh doesn't react at all, staring into space. "_Josh_."

He looks up at me; I know this look so well, too well, and it's still shattering; that look of _Why? Why him, why not me?_ screaming at you. But he blinks and wrenches himself out of the depth of his mind that still, after more than ten years it still scares me, and nods. "Yeah."

I'm hesitant to leave him alone, so I grab the phone without leaving his side; my left hand never leaves his, tracing circles, words in a secret language I can only hope he understands; _Please, please don't fall apart. _And_ I need you. _And_ I love you. _

I call New Hampshire, Liz' cell phone- she likes me, she quasi-adopted me during my time in New Hampshire with the Russell campaign, letting me sleep in the den and never asking questions. We don't talk much- I just tell her how sorry we are, ask her how her Mom is doing, Zoey and Ellie. She's quiet, and seems to be in shock. When I offer that we could come, help out with the funeral, take care of the logistics, the procedure of a state funeral; she manages a very pressed, very grateful yes.

There's a flight from National at 1:45; I get us two seats. Josh disappears into the shower; I pack, for both of us. Weird, how at moments of crisis we resort into the habits I had almost forgotten; the getting-him-flights and packing-his-clothes and making-sure-he-stays-sane; things that I used to half-joke were in my job description, even though the point, CJ explained to me on a Merlot-soaked night once, gesturing forcefully with a corkscrew the point was that they _weren't_.

We catch a cab. Washington, gray with sleet and collectively hung over from the recent holiday season, zooms by. Josh buys us sandwiches at the Airport, and we force each other to eat them. Again, it feels like being a diver in the depth of an ocean, separated from the rest of the people on the plane, mainly families going to Grandma's house for New Year's, by a layer of heavy water. I snuggle myself more deeply into my black cardigan, stare out of the window, not seeing anything but a friendly, determined face, calling my former English teacher from the Oval Office.

We don't speak much during the flight. Josh's fingers are tracing patterns I can't read onto the back of the seat in front of him. Like me, he's really somewhere completely different.

We hurry through the blandly smelling terminal at Manchester when I hear my name. I swing around, and there's CJ, a lone figure, seeming even taller than she's really is, standing at the other end of the hall, still as a statue, suitcase in one hand, a baby carrier in the other. We hurry over. Wordless hugs all around. Josh practically crushes her; I bury my head in her shoulders, smelling comfortingly familiar, and feel my eyes moisten again. Quickly, I let go and bend over to greet baby Nellie (Eleanor, actually, named for both Leo and her godmother Ellie Bartlet). She looks up at me with startlingly aware eyes, blinks at me, _laughs_. "Oh, CJ, she's so beautiful," I whisper involuntarily.

CJ tries to smile, but doesn't quite manage. "I had to bring her, I'm still breastfeeding," she explains. "It doesn't seem…"

"I'm sure it's fine," I say, with finality. "Did you just get here?"

"More or less- I figured you guys were on that flight and decided to wait for you. Have either of you talked to Abbey yet?"

I shake my head. "I called Liz, it didn't seem appropriate… have you?"

"She called me; this morning." Silence falls. Looking for something to do, I bend over Nellie again, tickle her stomach. She's grown even since I last saw her in October, grown a huge, dimpled smile.

To my surprise, it's Josh who finally gets us out of there, into a rental car and two rooms at the Inn. It's he who suggests we give the Bartlets some time, that we go to the supermarket and get ourselves some food, and something to bring for good measure. CJ and I turn her bed into a sandwich-making assembly line while Josh bounces Nellie on his lap; and gradually, we start talking about the President, reminiscing. It's so much like the old days despite everything –from the baby on Josh's lap and Guppy to the reason why we're here in the first place- that for seconds, we can forget what happened. But not for long.

Around six, we drive up to the farm, _Beyond The Village_. It's dark outside already; stars are twinkling above. Ellie comes to meet us in the driveway, hair like a halo, devastation and shock spelled out in her face; balancing her two-year old, Laura, on her hip. More hugs. Inside, there's still a Christmas tree, stockings, and pale, shell-shocked looking faces. Abbey's asleep when we come in. After a few minutes of halted conversation, I help Annie clean up the house a bit while Josh tries to comfort a tearful Zoey and CJ and Liz start talking about the funeral. I'm drying off dishes when Gus scrambles into the kitchen, a brand-new looking copy of _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ in his hands.

"Annie!" He gasps, tugging at his big sister's sleeve. "Annie, I was reading-"

"Gus, how can you have been reading freakin' Harry Potter at a time like this?" Annie, always the big sister, admonishes.

"Grandpa liked books," Gus points out. I can't help but smile. "He would only be upset if I was, like, watching Spongebob Squarepants or something. Anyway, Annie, look what it _says_." His finger scrolls down the page and then he reads aloud in an awed voice, "_After all, to the well-organized mind, death is nothing but the next great adventure_." He pauses for effect. "Annie, do you think that's true?"

I turn away, my eyes filling with tears again, but I hear Annie whisper: "I don't know Gus, but I hope so."

I do, too.

**Author's Notes**: Yes, I know, killing off beloved characters to create some sort of friction isn't exactly brilliant, but I _had_ been planning it from the start. I hope you'll forgive me.


	7. Chapter 7: Auld Lang Syne

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Seven: Auld Lang Syne**

It's something –I can't quite put my finger one it- but it's something in the next few days that feels distinctly _off_, like some singing barely off-pitch. What's disturbing is that, considering the situation we're in, it should feel a lot more like listening to someone wail without any knowledge or appreciation of music, while accompanied by a choir of nails screeching down a blackboard. But somewhere, between trying to make sure Mrs. Barlet eats and screening condolence calls and cooking and watching Toby (who came in the morning after us), Sam, CJ, Josh, Charlie and the Bartlets trying to put together a state funeral as quickly as possible; that makes me feel like I'm having a very vivid dream; like a déja-vu.

It doesn't hit me until I'm proofreading the third copy of President Santos's speech for the mass. The reason why I've been feeling like I've been living a dream or a memory is because that's exactly what I've been doing. Minus Guppy, whom you can't see, yet, and Nellie, who's been left to Annie and Gus' professional care, this is _exactly _like it used to be. Toby writing; Josh arguing; Sam writing words that glow off the page and make your heart skip as though just missed a step going downstairs; CJ the glue, holding it all together with her enormous love. And me, I suppose, not just screening calls and taking down notes and making coffee, but yelling at them occasionally, and being the one to, metaphorically speaking, Save Social Security.

And it's all, once again, for what Josh calls the "constituency of one". Once again, these men and women whom life has blown apart into so many different directions are reunited.

And they're serving at the pleasure of President Bartlet, one last time.

I wrap my fingers around a steaming mug of tea and stare outside. On the snow-covered porch, Gus and Laura are building a snowman while Annie hovers. It occurs to me how much these kids need- Annie needs someone to tell her it's okay to leave her little brother and cousin alone for a second; that treacherous death won't snatch for them; that she can go check her Facebook for half an hour. Gus needs a hug and a hair-ruffle and needs his big sister to pick a fight with him, needs to get into trouble for loosing his third pair of mittens. Even little Laura needs something- the quiet reassurance that things will be okay. That life will go on. Maybe we all do.

"Hello." I turn my head, and it's Abbey, pale and with dark shadows under her eyes.

"Hi," is all I manage. Truth be told, I've run out of thinks to say to her- I'm sorry just doesn't begin to cover it. Silence falls for a minute, the steam from my tea fogs the window, and I have to restrain myself not to draw a little heart with my fingers.

"I've been meaning to ask you, you're having a baby, aren't you?"

"Oh," I mumble. "Yes."

"I'm happy for you," she says, and squeezes my hand, a hollow smile on her face. "Really."

"Thanks," I say. "That means a lot." It does.

"And you're engaged," she states, eyes on the ring on my finger. "Have you set a date yet?"

"God, no," I say. "Josh only proposed on Christmas Eve." This truly is the most awkward conversation I've ever had- I don't want to small talk about my engagement and Guppy, not at a time like this. This should _so_ not be about us.

"Well, congratulations," she says, and this time, her smile's genuine, though only barely shining through a thick layer of grief. "I have to say, I was starting to think it would never happen."

"Uh," I say.

"I remember when Jed proposed," she says, completely out of the blue, looking through the window at her grandchildren but not seeing them at all. "This was at college- he made a reservation at this terribly tacky place he seemed to think was nice, and he made me sit through this _awful_ dinner. I was in the middle of my applications for Med School, and I was so pissed at him I wanted to break up with him for being so goddamn insensitive. It took me ten years of being married to the man to understand that making a huge production was his way of showing me he respected me. Ten years." A single tear runs down her cheek.

"Mrs. Bartlet, I really can't tell you how sorry-"

"Thanks, Donna," she interrupts me, squeezing my hand. "I thought we had so much time left. But be careful, okay? With the kids, a year will go by in a minute, and then Josh will probably be running for whatever's left to run for, and you'll start wondering where the years went."

"Uh-"

"It's alright, though," she gives me a little smile, "it's alright. We loved each other. We didn't have enough time, but we loved each other. You'll see- it doesn't feel like time wasted. You'll see."

_I don't _want_ to see_, I want to yell at her. We go back to the Inn shortly thereafter, and once we're out of the house, I wrap my arms tightly around Josh and bury myself in his dusty, dry-cleaned smell until his collar starts to feel warm and wet.

"Hey," he whispers into my hair, "it's okay."

I lift my head out of his shoulders and stare up at him. "Please don't die," I sob. "Promise you won't, okay?"

His face contorts in an acknowledgement of total helplessness, and I feel sick. "You know I can't promise that," he says, gently.

I can't help myself. My hand flies to my stomach and I feel idiotic tears running down my cheeks. "Just don't die," I repeat. "I want this life with you, and I want us to be old and gray and arguing about which cat food we should buy. I want us to have _time_, Josh."

"Which _cat food_ we should buy?" I suppose I should give him credit for at least trying not to smirk, even though he fails miserably.

"Shut up," I hiccup. "I'm serious."

"So am I. I'm not planning on dying soon; and neither are you. But we're not going to spend the time we have arguing about cat food. That's all I'm saying." I bury my face in his neck and feel vaguely comforted.

The funeral is scheduled for the next morning, December 31st. The night before, we sit together in the Inn's cozy bar as we might have a million years ago the night before an important rally, a deciding speech. Toby is drinking scotch and looking doleful; Sam's obsessively spellchecking the various speeches. CJ is sitting at her computer, quietly looking at what Google News spits out when you search for "Josiah Bartlet". Josh is tapping his feet in his usual way; I'm picking at his food. Conspicuous is the fact that nobody's saying much, that Josh doesn't even have the heart in him to argue about my stealing his fries. I feel close to tears again. This isn't fair, this isn't right. With a sick feeling in my stomach, I excuse myself early and go to bed. By the time Josh comes up, I've fallen into an uneasy sleep, punctured with worries and strange, tiring dreams.

Next morning at breakfast, pale and quiet faces dominate. Josh and I have to go meet the Santos' at Airforce One eventually, so I hastily gulp down tea and a chocolate muffin (or two, and some eggs- Guppy is once again stubborn). As we're leaving, I catch a glimpse of Danny getting out of his cab, CJ hurrying out to meet him, balancing a squealing Nellie on her hip. There's a smile on CJ's face like I haven't seen it all week. Feeling heartened, I get into the car next to Josh, and we drive to Manchester Air Force Base.

Both the President and the First Lady are genuinely upset, and concerned about the two of us. I assure Mrs. Santos that we're both all right, that I've been eating (at least the latter is true). Once she discovers the ring on my finger, she beams at me. As we drive back to the church in her car, she's considerate enough to let Ishmael brief her, and leaves me alone to stare into the snow-covered hills, head against the window, silently grieving.

The memorial mass precedes the funeral and goes by in a haze. Everything said, even Sam and Toby's painstakingly chosen words, sounds hollow and insincere. I don't want to remember "the most progressive president since FDR"; I don't want to remember "a beacon of the ideal of America, that all men are created equal". I want to remember the Butterball hotline and screwing up the radio address twenty times in a row, and his constant attempt to look like he thought my horrid jokes were funny. I want to remember the glimmer of excitement of his eyes whenever some mentioned something particularly obscure and nerdy. I want to remember the man as much as the president.

Most of the invited dignitaries don't go on to the graveyard- Abbey and Ellie put their foot down, and they got their way. So it's just a total of fifty or so people, a small congregation compared to the crowd at the mass, making their way down the icy pathway on the Manchester churchyard, to the tall and handsome site of the Bartlet family grave, dating, as we've heard about a million times, back to the 17th century.

"_Anima ejus, et ánimæ ómnium fidélium defunctórum, per misericórdiam Dei requiéscant in pace,"_ the priest intones.

I swallow. There are tears in Josh's eyes; Toby's got his hands balled into fists. CJ's looking at a light patch in the gray sky with a wild, desperate look in her eyes, tears falling fast, her hand clenching Danny's like he's the only thing stopping her from falling apart. I reach for Josh, unsure if I'm comforting him or needing his comfort, but his warm, blistered hand in mine is sure and steady, and he squeezes it, or I squeeze his, as the mahogany coffin is lowered into the grave. Mrs. Bartlet steps forward, whispers something. She seems to stand there for an awfully long time, a lone figure, in the same hat she wore at Mrs. Landingham and Leo's funeral. At one point, a faint smile passes over her face, then she whispers "Amen." Her daughters follow, and then Annie and Gus step up, Annie balancing Laura on her hip.

"We want to say something," Annie says, unsurely. When the priest nods at her with an encouraging smile, she continues: "We just heard a bunch of people say that our grandpa was maybe the best president America ever had. We don't know if that's true. I mean, it might be, but we don't know."

"But we know," Gus says, simply, "That he was the best Grandpa we ever had. And we wanted you all to know that, too."

They turn towards the grave, and I can see Gus' lips form the words, "Thanks, Grandpa." I can't decide if I want to smile or cry, so I settle somewhere in between. A line forms, and we each say our final goodbye to this wonderful man.

That night, New Year's Eve, we're all sitting in the Inn's bar again. Danny's here this time, and at 10:30, Charlie and Zoey burst in. "We couldn't stand it up there anymore," Zoey says, her eyes red and raw. We don't talk much; everyone's engrossed in his or her own thoughts about the coming year. Tonight, it doesn't feel like it's going to be a good one.

A few minutes before midnight, we turn towards the TV, and watch in a strange, hypnotic silence as the ball drops at Times Square.

Josh kisses me with a desperation I haven't known from him since the night Leo died and we won the election

After some clinking of glasses and a half-heartened chorus of Auld Lang Syne, the "party" breaks up before it's even one o'clock. Before we all return to our respective rooms, Sam raises his glass of scotch one last time. "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight," he says, his voice breaking. "To President Bartlet."

"President Bartlet," we all murmur, and I add: "Happy New Year." Hoping to make it so.


	8. Interlude 2 : World Spins Madly On

And Now The World Is Ours 

**Chapter Eight: Interlude- World Spins Madly On**

_I thought of you, and where you'd gone_

_and the world spins madly on_

-The Weepies, World Spins Madly On

They fly back the night of New Year's Day. Donna, who has become gaunt and silent over the past few days, with deep circles under her eyes and a habit of putting her hand over her stomach, where he knows their child to be, doesn't seem ready to leave, but he tugs her resolutely through the airport. They have said hurried goodbyes to CJ, who had regained some of her glow under the trusted care of Danny Concannon; to the Bartlet daughters, Liz iron-willed as always, Zoey and Charlie still tear-stained, Ellie mostly relived. Mrs. Bartlet gave Donna a brief, wordless hug, then looked him square in the eye and told him he had to take good care of her, "or I'm gonna beat your brains out." He muttered a sheepish "yes ma'am" at this reappearance of her Privateer ancestry and turned away, hoping to hide the panic in his own eyes. The truth is he's almost glad that he has to take care of her- it's an excuse not to fall apart himself. They get on the plane. Donna winces as the prominent smell of kerosene hits her, and her face looks rather green. He sighs, asking the stewardess for some water, which her forces her to drink. They find their seats and she curls up against his shoulder and falls asleep almost immediately, thank god, even before take-off. He leans his face against the cool plastic of the plane wall, staring into the night.

It must have been years since he's bothered to look out of the window during a plane ride. He's always had things to do on the plane, memos to read, numbers to ponder, events to plan, meetings to attend. The last time he can imagine not doing anything but look out of the window and wonder what kind of lives belong to the tiny specs of light down below… it seems like a lifetime ago. He remembers the night his father died, flying home on the red-eye from Chicago, Jed Bartlet's words still ringing in his ears like the quiet assurance that he had not let his father die alone in vain. His eyes fly over the lighted terminal of the tiny Manchester airport. He kept his promise, even when he abandoned him to beat a no-name Texan Congressmen to the White House, he never again made him feel like he didn't know his value. He was- well, it's impossible to put into words. Losing Leo was like losing his Dad all over again, but losing President Bartlet- it's like losing the sky, or the Washington Memorial, or something equally irreversible, comfortingly permanent. He closes his eyes against tears he's sick of crying, and then his face contorts into a smile, because the phrase has stirred another memory, from just as long ago.

Donna mumbles uneasily into his shoulder. _I think you might find me valuable_, she said to him a million years ago, and even then she did something to his heart. Ten years later her tearstained face keeps coming back to him, sobbing: _Please don't die. Promise you won't_. This is a side of love he hasn't known since Gaza, when he couldn't yet name it. Well, he could, he just was too stupid, too afraid to. It scared him, it still scares him, when she wakes him up at night from the mere force of her hand gripping his as she dreams of things he doesn't dare imagine.

The plane starts collecting speed, the rumbling of the engine gets louder and louder. He thinks about the New Year, which started last night like it was ashamed of itself, creeping into the Inn bar like an unwelcome guest. But the truth is he is welcoming this year. He's glad that time has so obviously declared that it waits for no man, not even Josiah Bartlet. Somehow, this New Year is like a promise, that they can leave behind their past and step boldly into the future, armed with nothing but each other.

They take off, and at the noise and the sudden movement, Donna wakes, squints up at him. "Go back to sleep," he whispers, thinking of Abbey Bartlet and Gaza and their child. "I'm right here, okay? Go back to sleep…" She presses her face into his shoulder, but before the tears can come, her body calms down, and soon all he can feel is her even, heavy breathing. He stares out into the night, the dark hills and dimly lit interstates of New Hampshire, where their story started. He reaches lightly for Donna's hand, and recalls her chocked voice: _I want us to have time, _she sobbed, and the truth is: so does he. He's just as scared as she is that their story might in fact be over tomorrow by some horrible concoction of fate, and he's just as desperate for them to have this life together, old and gray, and whatever she said about cat food. He presses his head more forcefully against the cold plane window, sees Boston looming in the distance, a web of light, full of busy, hopeful, happy people. He feels unbelievably separate from them all.

It's not fair, he thinks as his eyes follow a winding snake of light that's probably a train, slithering past the lightened houses of Connecticut. He grew up down there, somewhere, it was there he first learnt that life wasn't fair by anyone's definition of the word, but it looks like he has to relearn that lesson now, because the grief and the turbulence of the past few days have blown a hole into the life they had built, together, up to now, and with it the image that he might not have to teach Guppy that life wasn't fair. But what does he _want_ to teach, except for that? Donna fidgets against him: that love is a strange and wonderful thing, and nothing to be afraid of. But should not be dealt with lightly, either.

He spends the rest of the flight in this manner, making sure Donna sleeps, looking out of the window as though hoping to find answers there, answers to what question he's not quite sure. He remembers something Joey told him a while ago, how little the answer matters if you've got a really, really good question. But he knows none of his questions are really good- and so the answers matter. A _lot_.

_Can we survive this and do the parenting thing?_

_Is Donna going to be okay?_

_Am I going to be okay?_

The brilliantly shining mess of lights that is New York City flies by, but remains stubbornly silent.

"Dear passengers, we will shortly be reaching Ronald Reagan National Airport. We would ask you to set your chair's position straight and fold up your tables, please. Our estimated arrival time will be 10:25 PM, the weather in DC is snowy and about 12 degrees." The plane pummels downwards, and he forces himself to smile at Donna, who's waking up slowly.

"Hey," she says, almost managing a smile as she stretches, shifts her body into a sitting position. He misses the warmth, the pressure of her body against his for a second.

"Hey," he replies, and they look at each other, and on the second try, she manages a smile, and then he manages one, and they're smiling shyly at one another and he leans over and he kisses her exactly as they land, and again this stirs a memory, not as distant and wonderfully light, and there's the promise that is Donna again, that life with her will always be better than life without her.

Back home, they make pasta, which she eats ravenously, and he's pleased to see that it's not just Guppy who's hungry, but Donna, too. And now they're lying in bed, comfortably snuggled up against each other, and even though there's so much sadness, the fact that they've made it back to their bedroom relatively unscarred means the world to him.

"I've been thinking," he says, not to her face but to the window, to the dark Washington sky, where he foolishly imagines Joanie, his Dad, Leo and President Bartlet to be.

"Yeah?"

"I think we should _live_. I think we owe to them –to him- that we live."

She turns her face towards him and there is a shattered half-smile on her face and her eyes are rapidly filling with tears again.

"No," he says, horrified, "No, Donna, don't…"

"I…love…you…so…much," she sobs, smiling at the same time. "I've been so selfish, and you've been so nice to me and I was so scared that you would be the one falling apart, but it's me, and I'm so, so sorry and…"

He gently shushes her by laying a finger over her lips. Her eyes widen at the touch. "Don't be sorry," he smiles.

"Yeah."

"You thought I was going to be the one falling apart?"

"_We-ell_…"

"Can't do that anymore, can I?" He smiles at her. "I got two more people to take care of now, don't I?"

At this, she really bursts out laughing. "Joshua Lyman, when did you get so damn chivalrous?"

"I've always been?" Egging her on, because there is nothing more glorious than the sound of her shaky laughter.

"Yeah, _right_."

"I distinctly remember asking you for the finest muffins and bagels in all the land…"

"That's not chivalry, that's you being unbearable!" She's really laughing now, and he buries his face in her stomach to hide the relieved smile that has replaced his trademark smirk. "Guppy," he murmurs, "Your mother is a _head case_."

"HEY! Mommy's not a head case, sweetie, it's Daddy who—"

He never lets her finish her sentence, too busy kissing her and celebrating the fact that despite everything that has happened, he has his Donna back. Much later, when she's fast asleep, he looks back out into the sky. "Thanks, guys," he whispers, and then he places another gentle kiss on Donna's temple before drifting into a deep sleep himself, a smile on his face to match the sleepy smile of the other head on his pillow. Neither of them is plagued by nightmares that night, and if you asked, they would surely tell you with utter conviction that somewhere, Jed Bartlet was smiling with them.


	9. Chapter 9: Hormonal Moodswings

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Nine: Donna Moss and the Hormonal Mood Swings**

I wake up one morning in January, and blink, and notice a weird lump obstructing my view. I put my hand out to flatten what I assume is just a bundle of bunched covers and a misplaced T-shirt, and then realize I just hit myself in the stomach. In surprise, I prod myself again, and then the realization hits.

"Josh!" I squeal, kicking him in the shins.

He blinks an eye open. "Donnawha'-snottimeogeupyet," he grumbles, stuffing his head under a pillow.

"Jooooooosh," I whine. "Josh, I'm _showing_! Look, I have a bump! Joooooosh!"

He cracks one eye up at me. "You're killing me. It's five in the morning, and that's not a baby, that's the pizza you stole from me last night. Go back to sleep." And he closes his eyes.

"JOSH!"

He winces, looking sheepish. "Sorry."

"I should _think_. Do you think I'm showing, though?"

"Can we possibly have this conversation at a more godly hour?"

"No."

"Fine." He opens his other eye and props himself up. "Get up," he says. "I need to see you properly for this."

I try to give him a withering glare, but I'm too giddy. I scramble to my feet, on the bed. Josh's eyes widen. "Am I supposed to still be concentrating on Guppy?"

I kick him in the shins- gently. "Look!"

He obeys, a smile unfurling on his face. "There's definitely something there- although I still think I might be the pizza."

"Shut up."

"Okay." He leers –actually _leers_, the man is maddening- up at me and then he reaches up and puts his hands on my hips, and in one strong movement he's pulled me down and I'm straddling him. I lean over and kiss him, long and hard.

"Forget about going back to sleep?" I whisper into his ear, and he gives an affirmative groan as his hands make their way up the oversized T-shirt I'm wearing. I help him pull the thing off and start to work on his T-shirt and I breathe in his smell and his arms are everywhere and his kisses are covering me like a blanket of softly falling snow.

I could _so_ do this every morning.

Later, I extract myself from Josh's arms while he's still absent-mindedly rubbing my shoulder blades and pull his T-shirt over my head, looking at him with a grin on my face. "Are we going back to sleep?"

He looks up at me. "What time is it?"

"Don't stop," I complain, gesturing towards my shoulders. "It's, oh, wow, it's six-fifteen. So no more sleep."

"Hey, I've got an idea," Josh says, unfortunately interrupting his rubbing. "Let's go out for breakfast."

"Pancakes?"

"Yeah."

"Count me in." I roll out of bed at once and march straight into the shower.

"YOU KNOW," Josh yells over the running water, "I DIDN'T MEAN RIGHT NOW."

I ignore him, cautiously letting the hot water run over my body. Pizza or baby, there's definitely a bump there, which I shield from the running water with my left hand while shampooing. I feel better than I have in weeks as I get out of the shower and wrap myself into a towel. Josh, standing half-dressed in front of the closet, turns with wide eyes when he sees me walk in. "God," he says appreciatively, "you are _so_…" he trails off, pulling away the towel and kissing my collarbone.

"Thanks," I whisper, and in minutes we're back on the bed, my still-wet hair leaving a glistening trail of drops all over his body.

"Josh," I say, "I do still want…" I don't finish the sentence because I'm way to preoccupied with Josh's mouth and the things he's doing with it.

"Pancakes?" he asks, fifteen extremely R-rated minutes later.

"Yes," I breathe, kissing him. "Do you know I love you?"

"I do."

I get into the office later than usual, grinning like a moron and stuffed with pancakes.

"Jesus Christ," My assistant Kerry says when I walk in. "You're not _glowing_, you're radiating like a freakin' uranium mine."

"Thanks," I laugh. "Sorry I'm late." I drop my voice, "We kind of had trouble getting out of bed this morning."

"Yeah, you didn't have to tell me that." She shakes her head. "Lou wants fifteen minutes with you and Ishmael about the _Times_ exclusive, and you're meeting with Congresswomen Lucas and Wyatt at three about the Freedom of Choice Act."

"Ask Lou if we can do it now," I say. "When's Mrs. Santos coming in?"

"Sometime soon, I suppose. She's having breakfast with the South Korean ambassador and his wife, but she should back after that." I walk into my office and catch up on calls, then start reading a memo on abortion stats for my meeting with Andi and Joey –that is, Congresswomen Wyatt and Lucas- this afternoon. But then I'm interrupted by a rush of pink coming into my office.

"Hey, Miranda," I look up with a grin. "What's up?"

"Is Mom here?" She asks, grinning back at me.

"No, sweetie, I haven't seen her. What are you doing here? Why aren't you in school?"

"Snow day," she replies. "Can I have some paper, to draw?"

"Uh," I say, handing her a pile of old memos, "sure. But why don't you go back to your room and draw there?"

"Can't I stay here, with you? Just till Mom comes?" I sigh- it's always like this. When Mrs. Santos is getting ready for a trip or very busy, Miranda becomes clingy. It doesn't help that the First Lady is herself ambivalent to see her work as an actual job, and doesn't have a proper office- a computer and a desk in the family room in the residence, and my office for conferences with staff, but no proper place to work. The kids, especially Miranda, have the sense that they can barge in whenever they want to, and while I don't mind as such, it doesn't help when we're trying to keep up a professional appearance in her office.

We sit in silence for awhile, Miranda sprawled on the floor with paper and markers, me reading memos and making notes for my meeting with Lou. Kerry sticks her head into my office. "Lou can't make it now, but Amy's here to see you if you have a sec."

"Sure," I say, swallowing. Okay, I know it's childish and ridiculous, but I still can't _stick_ Amy. And I'm pretty sure she hates me, too.

She walks in, all swishy and fabulous with her nails perfectly manicured and her brown hair swinging after her. "Hi," she says, barely even looking at me, and sneering down at Miranda. "Hey, Miranda."

Miranda glowers at her. "Hi." To her credit, she doesn't like Amy either, which is made painfully obvious by how she immediately scrambles to her feet and out the door.

"Running a daycare?" Amy raises an eyebrow at me, and I know she's joking, but there something so malevolent in her smile that I can't quite manage a laugh.

"She was just waiting for her mom," I explain, and gesture for Amy to sit. "Hey, nice victory on the development loans," I add. A little complimenting never hurt anyone, right?

"Thanks," she says. "I wanted to talk to you about the State of the Union- it's getting close, we really need to make the final discussions."

"Yeah," I say, "I know." As an afterthought, I add, innocently: "Isn't Lou in charge of that, though?"

Amy winces. "Team effort. You guys have input, I assume?"

"Yes." I've been trying to get it in for morw than a week, since we came back from New Hampshire, but no one seems to take this office particularly seriously. I'm going to go _mad_. "There's a couple of things we want to address, mainly language, though."

"Great," Amy says, looking annoyed. "How's tonight, seven-thirty? We can get you together with the speechwriters and everyone."

"Can't do it," I say, at once. "Ishmael and Jordan are both off tonight, and I want them there. How's first thing tomorrow morning?" I know she won't be able to refuse, they have a State of the Union Meeting tomorrow morning anyway, Josh told me.

"I'd really rather do it tonight," she says, and I know exactly why. If it's just her and her staff, who refuse to take what I do here seriously, they can send me off with a gift bag and have it done with. No _way_. "Can't you get your staff to stay a little longer?"

"Sorry, but no. Ishmael's got a family thing, and Jordan is off Tuesday and Thursday nights so she can spend some time with her kids when they're awake."

"Well, at least someone's got their priorities right," Amy sneers. Maybe it's just me and my baby bump, but the woman looks _evil_.

"The First Lady has no problem with that, so I don't see why you should," I snap.

"Hey, calm down," she says, rolling her eyes. "I really think we should have that meeting tonight though, I really do."

"Yeah? Amy, you know that if I take this to _anyone_ –Josh, the President, Mrs. Santos, even Lou- they're going to say it makes no difference whatsoever and the fact that Ishmael and Jordan are making time for their families in this very demanding job is something we should support. What are you trying to do, other than discredit me and the work I do?"

There's a long, painful pause, and then Amy gets up and nods curtly. "I'll see you tomorrow morning," she says, sounding extraordinarily pissed. "Eight o'clock in the mural room."

"We'll be there." _And kick your far too skinny ass on child poverty like you won't know what hit you._ "See you."

"Yeah." She walks out and leaves me stunned at my own sudden cattiness.

Ironically enough, the whole issue of childcare and our careers comes up again and again during the day. First, my meeting with some people in HUD is cancelled because the key staffer's taking care of her chicken-pox ridden kids, and then I grab coffee with Andi and Joey, and they both complain about their nannies and daycares being inflexible and generally annoying. By the time I meet Josh in the parking lot at eight-thirty, I'm quiet and thinking hard about what I'm going to do once Guppy gets here.

"You okay?" Josh asks into the uncharacteristic silence as we drive home.

"I got into a catfight with Amy tonight," I say, which isn't, you know, a total lie.

"Now _that_ I would pay good money to see," he grins at me. "Did you throw mud at each other?"

"Shut up," I say, and catching my eye in the rearview mirror, the grin slides off his face. "What?"

"Jordan has to take time off so she make dinner for her kids two nights a week," I count off on my fingers. "Mrs. Santos lets her kids barge in on us at work so she doesn't have to feel guilty about how little family time they get. Joey told me today that she hasn't been to a single of Gracie's ballet recitals because she was stuck in committee, and Andi's on the third nanny in a year. Josh, what are we going to _do_?"

Josh frowns. "We'll figure it out. Are you upset about this?"

"Yes, obviously," I snap. "And what kind of answer is that, we'll figure it out?"

"We will," Josh says with a bemused smile.

"You're being a patronizing ass," I tell him, staring into the night. "Do you not care about how we're going to raise our child?"

"Calm down-"

"Don't tell me to calm down." We're home. I open the door and scramble out without looking at him, slamming the car door in his face.

"Donna, seriously. What the hell is going on?"

"What's going on," and I realize with shock that I'm close to tears as I unlock the front door and march inside, seething, "is that I'm bringing up an important issue and you are being completely blasé and flippant about it, and if that's the way you're going to behave about our child then, god, Josh, I don't even know what to say."

"Okay, stop." He grabs me and spins me around, and his face is so confused and hurt that I start to cry in earnest. "Time out. Explain, please, what the hell is your problem."

"I want to be a good mother," I say, "and I want you to want to be a good father. Let go of me."

"No," he says, and his grip on my wrists tightens, "no. If you think I don't want to be a good father, then you are way out there. I want to be a good dad. You know that. And you know that I care, and you know that I completely respect the work you do and I will support any decision you make about going back to work or not once Guppy is here a hundred and _fifty_ percent. And if you needed me to tell you that, then, god, Donna_, I_ don't even know what to say."

He lets go of my wrist and walks into the kitchen. I can hear the fridge open and close and hear him open a beer bottle, then he walks past me into the living room, where I hear the TV flick on and baseball fills the room. I just stand there, completely still, tears streaming down my face. I feel _miserable_. After awhile, I walk into the living room and flop down next to him. "I'm sorry," I say. "I shouldn't have- I'm _so_ sorry. I know you want to be a good dad. You've been so great about all of this and I'm being a psychotic bitch. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," he says, looking at me. "Thanks for saying sorry. And I love you even if you are a psychotic bitch."

"Hey," I sniffle, "that's only okay when I say it." He laughs, and cuddles me closer, and I wipe my eyes and feel comforted. He watches baseball, I pretend to, and then, when the Mets are in deeper trouble than they've been all game and Josh is swearing loudly, it hits me. I've been replaying my encounter with Amy in my head and the solution is so easy, so obvious…

"Josh," I say, "can you stop concentrating on the Mets for a second and listen to this?"

"What?" I know he's not really listening, but he will be.

"How would it be if I could set up a White House Day Care center? For anyone from the Santos' downwards to drop off their kids- it could be in the building, or in OEOB, and you could spend some time with your kids when a meeting was suddenly cancelled, and drive there and back together. And we could organize a school bus to pick up the older kids from school, right?"

He looks down at me. "Yeah," he says, "wow. You should talk to some people about it."

"It _is_ a good idea, right? You're not just saying that so you can watch your game in peace?"

"Both." He grins down at me and kisses me, and my life has just gotten a whole lot better. Silly me, I didn't think was possible.


	10. Chapter 10: A Blessing To One Another

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Ten: A Blessing To One Another**

"_It is therefore necessary for us, Christians and Jews, to first be a blessing to one another."_

-Pope John Paul II

If my life was hectic before all of this, as we pass the State of the Union and the icy coldness of January moves into the even colder wetness of February, the days go by so quickly I'm starting to lose track of them as they pass. There's my usual workload to take care of, plus, I'm really working on the Daycare thing now. And I haven't even _started_ planning our wedding. It doesn't help that I'm schlepping a constantly growing Guppy around with me wherever I go, and that I'm constantly hungry, but today, none of that matters. I absent-mindedly gnaw on a blueberry muffin and play around with the ribbons of my empire-wasted top, one of the few things I can still wear. After weeks of nagging Mrs. Santos, talking to lawyers and insurance companies, people in Interiors and White House Operations, today, I'm finally meeting with three potential operators of "my" daycare. Sitting next to me is Isabel Schoner, much more pregnant than I am with her third boy, also deputy White House Council. I barely knew Isabel three weeks ago, but since then, when she was the first female staffer to really listen to my idea, she's become a close friend. It helps that she's much more relaxed about motherhood then I'll ever be, incredibly funny and generally good-natured. Together, we found out about the legal hordes of opening what's called a workplace-based daycare, we started asking other White House Moms if they and their kids would be interested, and we found out that there's an entire wing of the top floor of OEOB that's been unused since water damage almost a year ago. Things are happening so quickly, which explains why I'm so nervous, I guess. Not to mention I'm worried Guppy's going to start kicking for the first time in the middle of this meeting, and I won't be able to concentrate on anything else. It's kind of like when you're twelve and take tampons everywhere you go, just in case.

"Guys. Are you ready?" Kerry's head appears in the doorway, mercifully interrupting these thoughts.

"Uh," I say, but Isabel gets there first: "Yes." Possibility number one, a representative of a large chain of daycares all over the district, enters. He's an uptight, slightly sweating man wearing a pinstriped suit and penny loafers, and reminds me uncomfortably of the guys I used to date mainly to get CJ off my back about it a million years ago. My hand immediately flies to my stomach, and Isabel smirks. It's not that what he's saying doesn't make sense, but I would never trust him with Guppy. His demeanor is cold, business-like, and truth be told, I'm relieved when he leaves us five minutes later with a leaflet, plus the business-plan we asked him to prepare in advance. Next is a frumpy, middle-aged woman with curly hair who runs a very successful Montessori-inspired daycare on the Hill and is looking to open a new branch. Again, rationally what she says makes sense, but the more she talks about cognitive development and stimulating growth, the more high-strung she seems. When I ask a perfectly valid question, she just steamrolls right over me. She doesn't seem to be interested in our input at all, which I find to be troublesome. I'm completely discouraged when Kerry leads our final option onto the room. This is an unlikely couple- a mousey, petite young woman with blonde braids and a flowery skirt, and a wiry, confidence-brimming woman in her fifties with a broad smile, the kind of person you'd expect to find running a camp in Maine. It turns out they've both been with various public and private, non-profit and for-profit daycare organizations, and have decided to launch their own business. What they have to say immediately strikes a chord with me, about giving children space to grow, about providing a nurturing and open environment, with music and art, and most importantly, free time. I think of Guppy and ask about infant care. The older points to a line in their business plan and explains that according to their beliefs as well as calculations, they would be offering care starting at 12 to 15 months, simply because starting at that age, kids can be mixed together at different age groups.

"There's no point," she says, "mixing three-year-olds with babies, but starting when a child can walk and talk, there's really no good reason to not have it interact with older kids. Their development just soars- and the older ones learn about responsibility and that sort of thing." I have to admit this answer makes a lot of sense, even if I don't like it much.

We talk for about fifteen more minutes, and once they're out the door, Isabel and I beam at each other. "They're it. Right?"

"Got to be," Isabel says. "I mean the first one might've been okay if we were running the Great Hall of the People Daycare," she laughs. "But otherwise?"

"I know," I agree. "We'll talk about it later- how's Thursday morning?"

"Really good." She gives my hand a squeeze. "I'm so excited about this!" I grin, her excitement making me feel giddy, too. She's got an infectious sort of air- not to mention that, ever since we were over at there house on Saturday, seeing her hand out crackers and carrot sticks to her boys and watch them challenge Josh to a round of "baseball" in the backyard, seeing her in office clothes just seems weird and out of context.

"Me too." She leaves, and I lean back in my chair. Then, remembering something, I push my number one on speed-dial.

"This is Josh Lyman's office." It still sounds so weird to have someone else, and Margaret of all people, say what was so long my line.

"Hey, it's me," I say. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Probably."

"Can you block off Josh's schedule on Thursday after two?"

"Is two-thirty okay?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," I say, surprised that this actually works. "Thanks a bunch."

"You're welcome- he's all yours for the rest of the day, okay?"

"Perfect. Bye, Margaret."

Predictably enough, my phone rings two minutes later. "Donna Moss?"

"You blocked off my schedule on Thursday? You're still allowed to do that?"

"Shame on you for thinking the baby inside of me didn't give me that prerogative," I laugh.

"But _why_?"

"Josh," I sigh. "Look at the calendar."

"It's Thursday," he says, slowly.

"Uh-huh."

"The fourteenth." There's a long pause, in which I have to bite my lip so I don't start laughing. "Oh," he says, sheepishly. "Yeah. Valentine's Day."

"Tell me, Joshua, do you remember giving me this ring on Christmas Eve and asking me to spend the rest of my life with you?"

"Vaguely."

"I'm kind of regretting my answer to that proposition now."

"What are we doing-"

"Joshua Lyman, we have a wedding to plan, and a sonogram at four. That's what we're doing."

"That's _all_ we're doing?" Sounding disappointed.

"I don't know, what were you thinking of?"

"Well, in order to tell you _that_ I'd have to get up and close the door."

I giggle. "See you tonight, Josh."

"Hey! Don't hang up when it's just getting entertaining!"

"Don't whine."

I can practically hear his grin. "How'd your thing go?"

"Really well."

"Can we talk some more about the things we might do on Thursday night once we're done planning the nuptials?"

"Why only Thursday night?"

Josh's sharp intake of breath makes me smirk. "I'm hanging up now," I tell him.

"I'm not going to get anything done all afternoon."

With a grin, I put the receiver down, and almost immediately Jordan and Ishmael, arguing as always, walk in. I wrench my thoughts back to the First Lady's toast at the Correspondent's Dinner, and my day rushes by as days have a tendency to these days.

One fourth-five on Thursday, I excuse myself from a particularly fruitless meeting on the Hill, citing a dentists appointment, which earns me a raised eyebrow from Will, a.k.a. _Congressman Bailey_. I get into a cab and ride home, where I quickly change out of my uncomfortably tight blouse and skirt, and into an oversized, deep red sweater and pair of Josh's boxers. The sweater, while well-fitting around my stomach, is still far too big over my shoulders, and keeps slipping down to reveal my lacy bra-straps and ever-growing cleavage. Not that Josh will mind or anything. The truth is, everything they ever told me about pregnant women and their libido is, too our unanimous delight, true. The sex has been, well, mind-blowing, really.

I head into the kitchen and start dicing onions and browning beef, and by the time Josh gets home, the delicious, rich smell of Chili con Carne is filling the air.

"Wow," he says, appreciatively, taking in me, the sweater, the chili. "Oh, wow."

"Try this," I say, gesturing a spoon in his direction. He tastes it, his eyes never leaving my bare shoulders. "Delicious."

There's a little trail of chili in the corner of his mouth, and I can't help myself, I lean forward and kiss him. The chili is, indeed delicious. He pulls me close and I melt into him, and his fingers are halfway up my shirt and his tie is lying on the floor when the kitchen timer goes off. "That's the cornbread," I mumble into his mouth.

"My domestic goddess," Josh breathes back, his fingers all over my breasts.

"Should I let it burn?" Eyes wide and willing myself not to give myself over to Josh completely, to the things he's doing to my body, to the way my body is singing for him.

"Nah," Josh grins at me, hands resurfacing. "Let's not waste your cooking. We can finishing this later."

"I wouldn't call it a waste, exactly," I grumble, feigning disappointment as I pull the cornbread from the oven. I eye Josh. "This needs to cool, anyway. And the chili needs to simmer for another half hour."

"Yeah?" And before I know it, he's got me trapped between his arms against our fridge. Take-out menus and a picture of baby Nellie fly to the floor, where soon enough Josh's pants and two pairs of boxers join them.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Josh smiles at me later, as he pulls his boxers back on. I have to giggle- Josh always looks so sheepishly, shyly pleased after sex, like he can't believe his good fortune.

"Happy Valentines Day," I reply, and kiss him. He pulls me into a hug, which sends both of us flying across the kitchen table, missing the cornbread narrowly. I squeal, Josh smirks and then we both dissolve in a heap of laughter and kisses. "Don't start," I say, warningly, as his hands start to make their way up my thighs. "We have a wedding to plan, and oh, chili to eat?"

"That last part was convincing." He swaggers over to the stove and smells the chili. "Smells great." His eyes search mine. "Is that…?"

"Yeah." President Bartlet's recipe. I found it at the bottom of my memorabilia-shoebox a few weeks ago, just when we came back from New Hampshire, and I've been wanting to make it ever since.

Josh's smile grows wistful, but not sad as he reaches for two bowls and starts ladling out chili. I take the still-warm cornbread from its tin and into a breadbasket, grab two Snapples from the fridge, and we move to the couch. "You know," I say, nestling down next to him, pulling the coffee table closer with my feet, "this is a really bad habit we need to start getting out of, because it's important for kids to have structured family meals at the table."

"Guppy," Josh says, placing his head on my stomach, "do you mind that we're sitting on the couch." He pauses a second with a look of concentration, then looks up at me. "Guppy doesn't mind."

I smack him lightly over the head, then say, mouth full cornbread, "Whodoo wanat ow wehing?"

Josh laughs. "Well, Mom, obviously, your parents and whichever other members of your very extensive family you deem deserving, and um, CJ and Danny, Toby, Sam and Ainsley, the Santos's, I guess-"

"You really don't have any friends outside the office, do you?" I giggle and reach for a pen and notepad. Within minutes, we've assembled a nicely short guest list, containing just the people we call family, whether they're related to us or not. I'm relieved Josh isn't looking for a big party, because I don't think Guppy or me could stomach that. It doesn't start getting tricky until we reach the question of "How". It only now occurs to me that we have never even talked seriously about our religions, and which one we want to raise Guppy with- and under who's blessing we want to get married.

"Josh," I call out thoughtfully, "do you think I should convert to Judaism?"

Josh rematerializes out of the kitchen with a confused look on his face. "Do you want to?"

"Well, God, I don't know… not particularly."

"Well," he says, bemused, "then I don't think you should." He sits down, frowning. "What am I missing?"

"Well," I say, "I did some reading on my own-"

"And I have lost track of the times I have told you not to do that-"

"-on the internet, and it seems to me that the fact that I'm not Jewish is problematic." I sigh, and then plow on. "First of all, it turns out the fact that we're in love at all is apparently impossible. Also, our marriage would not be considered valid at all, and our children would have the same spiritual standing as children born out of wedlock."

"Donna, where the hell did you read this? Marry-an-Orthodox-Rabbi-dot-com?"

"Somewhere on the internet," I say, defensively. "Josh, we really do need to talk about this!"

"Yes," he says, "I know we do, but rather than adhering to Rabbi Shlomo Stick-Up-His-Butt's moral code, let's stick to what's important to you and me, and Guppy. Okay?"

"Okay." I giggle. "Rabbi Shlomo Stick-Up-His-Butt?"

"Whatever. Now," he says, "as far as I'm concerned, you're Donna, I love you, and God's only regret about the fact that we're getting married is that it didn't happen sooner."

"Yeah," I say, "but-"

"Donna, why is this a thing? And, hey, we need to get going, it's ten to four, we've got a sonogram, right?"

"Oh, yeah. And it's a _thing_," I say, getting up and moving upstairs to get dressed, Josh following me, "because I want to have a wedding we're both happy with, and I know that involves Judaism for you as much as it involves Christianity for me! We're only doing this once, I want to get it right!" I pull on a pair of maternity slacks, which slide down my waist and land somewhere around my ankles. "AND I HATE THAT NOTHING FITS ME RIGHT NOW!"

"Would you mind, with the yelling?"

"Sorry. Anyway-" I pull on a pair of navy sweatpants, "my point is that we need to find a way to incorporate both our religions into the ceremony, and" –pulling on a pink turtleneck several sizes too big for me- "into Guppy's life."

"And we will," Josh assures me. "Toby and Andi figured it out somehow, we'll ask them how they did it."

"Josh. Toby and Andi are _divorced_."

"I know that, but I'm sure the wedding ceremony wasn't what brought that around. And they're raising the twins together and that seems to be working out just fine. You ready to go?"

"Yeah." I pull on my parka and a hat and follow him out of the front door. "So you think there's a way to do this without us going to hell?"

"Jews don't _have_ hell, that's the great part." He starts the car, and looks at me. "Have you ever been to a Jewish wedding?"

"Sally Seidelmann, from High School."

"Okay. What do you remember?"

"There was this big flowery tent thing –I want one of those-"

"That's what's called a chupah," he explains, with a smirk.

"Okay, well, I want one. And there was lots of wine-drinking involved, and a _lot_ of Hebrew." I pause a moment. "And they smashed a glass at the end! That was kind of cool, can we do that?"

"Yeah, I would have insisted on that part anyway. My turn. Christian weddings, there's the Wedding March, and the "I do" part, and, um, the thing with the rings. But Jews have those too. And the thing with 'speak now or remain silent forever,' which I always thought was kind of goofy, personally."

"Gee, Josh, that was impressive. How many weddings have you been to in your life, exactly?"

"What? I got more than you did!"

"That's cause I've been to one Jewish Wedding, and you've been to like, ten, Christian ones, probably."

"Definitely not that many."

"We're here," I point out, and Josh parks in front of Dr. Walsh's practice. "You know what? I feel much better about this."

"Good." Josh plants a big kiss on my cheek. "Come on, my favorite shiksa."

"Shut up, you schmuck."

"Hey, no bringing the Yiddish unless you're actually converting." And with that, we scramble out of the car.


	11. Chapter 11: Tears& Fears & Feeling Proud

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Eleven: Tears and Fears and Feeling Proud…**

"CJ. It's Donna; I'm going insane. Can you call me back? Say hey to Danny and Nellie. And I'm serious." I slam down my phone and spot my boss, who has just entered my office.

"Hey, Donna," Mrs. Santos grins at me.

"Oh," I reply, blushing. "Hi."

"Donna, are you okay?" She flops down on my desk and helps herself to one of the puffed rice crackers I've been trying to force myself to eat, only to find Oreos far more appealing in the end.

"Sure," I say, not meeting her eye. I still feel like I owe Helen Santos this job and this office –even if it's not the palace of a thing they showed me on Inauguration Day, seeing as we decided to split it in four to make room for our ever growing policy staff, and the army of schedulers in my boss' employ- and I'm not going to complain to her. But the truth is, and I'm pretty sure the First Lady knows that, is that I'm not okay. I'm constantly tired, hungry and cranky; Josh has gone from understanding to impatient and we've been arguing all week, not to mention the fact that I'm so swamped with work I haven't been able to plan further with Isabel on the daycare, let alone start organizing our wedding. I rub my dry, aching eyes and shrug up at her. "No, really, I'm fine."

"They never tell you what a bitch pregnancy is," Mrs. Santos says, casually. "I was actually resenting Miranda by the time she was born, that's how sick I was of having her inside me." She peers at me. "It's normal to feel swamped. Especially in this job."

"Okay," I say, hesitantly. "But Mrs. Santos, really, I-"

"Hey," she says, "did I say you were feeling swamped? No. All I was saying was that if you were, that would be perfectly fine." She smiles at me. "We've pushed through a really big part of our legislative package already, and you've got me speaking at the UN in a month. That's really something. And Jordan says the daycare thing's going well, too. You're really doing fine, okay?" She helps herself to another rice cracker and gets up. "I'll see you at Senior Staff?"

"In an hour," I affirm, forcing myself to smile. "Thanks, Mrs. Santos, I really appreciate you… caring."

She smiles at me as she turns to leave. With her mouth full of cracker, she looks just like Miranda for a second. The door closes behind her, and to my horror, I feel my eyes fill with tears. It's not just a tiredness that's seeping out of my bones, making me feel like death warmed over. It's not just not being able to keep up with everything at once, and it's not just that I've been taking it out on Josh, who has a budget to pass and a foreign policy mess to clean up, and is in an according mood, and that's only when I get to see him- over hastened breakfasts, and when he accidentally-on-purpose wakes me up when he comes home from work around midnight. It's not just that my wedding is starting to feel like a chore, and that I'm already sick of being pregnant. I close my eyes, burning from tears and tiredness, and cradle my stomach in my hands. "Guppy," I whisper, and I'm shocked at how panicked, small and broken, my voice sounds. "Guppy, I don't know if I can do this."

I was up on the Hill this morning, and the chorus of malicious whisperings, barely hushed as I passed by, was like being stabbed with a knife. Every leggy, blonde staffer, with too-high heels and a swishy, sideway fringe, seems to think I'm this power-hungry, calculating bitch and this pregnancy is more or less a hoax in my plan for world domination. They seem to think I lure Josh into submission, that it's no wonder our agenda gets attention. More than one seemed to think it was possible that Guppy wasn't even Josh's, that I was –get this- sleeping with President Santos. Those that didn't think that were convinced Josh and I have been sleeping together for years, and that I've had at least one abortion. The hate, the envy with which they spoke about me made high school seem like a civilized place. And it's been making wonder whether this can possibly be a good idea, a wedding, a DC wedding no less. I'm actually, seriously considering grabbing Josh and getting on a plane to somewhere, anywhere where there's a judge and no one else. Or maybe to Madison Episcopalian, where my parents got married, whisk our friends away to the Midwest, away from the vicious whispers of DC. It's not really a plan- it's just a desperate attempt to get away from it all.

I just sit there for a while, trying to control my breathing and wiping my cheeks, and then something truly miraculous happens. It's a tiny little flutter against the palm pressed against my stomach, faint, but definitely there. "Guppy?" I ask, loudly. "Guppy, did you just…" There it is, again! Kind of like a hiccup, except it's not me doing it, it's _not me_. "Guppy," I repeat, and now I'm really crying, humbled at the luck and the love and the life given to me. In this wonderful office, with Josh who loves me even if he comes home after midnight and argues back if I pick a fight with him, and with a baby, with Guppy, who can kick and who will, sooner or later, be a real little person gurgling up at me, reaching for my hair with a toothless, dimpled smile just like Josh's. I'm the luckiest person in the whole entire world, maybe. I just wish the world wouldn't begrudge me my happiness.

The threads, the mess of my life gradually untangle as the days grow warmer and wetter and February peters into March. Isabel marches into my office one day and forces Kerry to block off my schedule, and by the time I come home that night, later than Josh, for once, we've made a mile of progress. Ishmael's draft of the First Lady's UN speech is so good I have to call Lou and brag about having the best speechwriter in the building on _my_ team. Mrs. Santos forces me to start expanding our team and transferring some of my portfolio to Jordan, so she'll be ready to act as interim CoS once Guppy gets here. The job interviews come remarkably close to my idea of hell, but eventually, I find two worthy additions to our staff. And Josh, rejoicing with me over Guppy's kicks and how they're gaining strength and frequency, even if he's still as tired and cranky as I am. I'm eating more and sleeping better, but I'm still in complete denial over the whole wedding thing. I mean, I know, theoretically, that there's no rush, that no one about who's opinion we care is going to mind if we don't get married until after Guppy is born, but it just doesn't feel right. And I want to get married. At least, at moments when I don't want to throw two sweatshirts and a bag of rice crackers into a suitcase and buy a one-way ticket to Australia, I do. _I do_. Do I?

It's not about Josh and it's not about love. Love is not the issue. Love wasn't the issue when we never crossed the line for seven years, it wasn't the issue when I willed him back to life after Roslyn and he flew to Germany just to tell me he was still here. Love wasn't what I was lacking when I quit, and it wasn't what I'd found inside me when I came back. Love is what began our story. Love, I think, resentfully staring at Josh's silhouette in the bedroom door as he comes in after midnight one day in early March before closing my eyes and feigning sleep, love is what makes our lives so goddamn complicated.

Next day, by three-thirty I'm snapping at Kerry and tearing my poor, innocent staff to pieces over misplaced remarks when the door opens and the person I have been longing to see more than almost anyone else for weeks walks in.

"CJ!" I squeal, running over and giving her a tight hug.

"Hi!" She grins at me, holding me at arm's length, scrutinizing me with an appraising look on her face. "Don't take this personally, but you look like Black Death warmed up."

"Thanks," I snap, turning to introduce my staff. "CJ, this is my communications director, Ishmael Hanin, Ishmael, this is CJ Cregg-"

"Oh my god," Ishmael gushes, and I'm amused to note he's actually blushing, "You're, like, my inspiration! Seriously, you're the reason I'm here, it is _such_ an honor… I was studying business at community college and working at my parent's falafel place, and whenever it was my shift, I'd turn the TV on C-SPAN. And I'd watch you do your briefings and… here I am! My Dad hates you, by the way, he wanted me to take over the restaurant," he adds, as an afterthought, still wringing her hand.

"Thanks," CJ says, frowning. "I think." I laugh, and introduce Jordan and Kerry, who seem equally delighted to meet her. After a few minutes of smalltalk, CJ turns to Kerry: "Can I have her for the rest of the day?"

Kerry considers for a moment. "Actually, yeah, you can."

"Do I get a say in this?" I protest.

"Not when you look the way you do, you don't. Come on, get your coat." Feeling like a petulant teenager, I reach for my coat, shouting out instructions to Kerry and Jordan, who just roll their eyes and grin as CJ marches me out of my office.

"CJ, what are you doing here?" I ask her, staring.

"Checking on you. God, it feels weird to be back here." She looks around with a shudder. "I kind of hate you for making me fly me all over here, you know."

"I didn't-"

" '_CJ, call me, I'm going insane'_. '_Hey, CJ, I was going to call you but I'm so tired…_' '_CJ, when you were pregnant did you feel like you wanted to sleep for the next two hundred years?' _" She imitates the messages I've been leaving on her machine for the past few weeks, then her expression changes from impatience to indulgence. "Hey, relax. I'm giving a lecture at GW tomorrow night and decided to come in a day early because, Donna, I'm really worried about you. Come on, let's get some coffee and take a walk."

We cross the street in silence and walk to the nearest Starbucks. She buys herself a coffee, and me a Chai Latte and a cinnamon scone. As we walk through the sunshine, past groups of tourists and government staffers, I link arms with her, savoring the familiarity of this. "Where's Nellie?" I ask, determined to change the subject away from, well, me. "How is she?"

"She's great, I decided now that she's weaned –you're going to have a lot of fun with that, by the way- it'd be good for her to hang out with her Dad for a couple of days. Seeing as she probably hates me now anyway for denying her nourishment." She half frowns at the expectant look on my face. "What?"

"Do you have a picture?" I prod, amused. "A current one."

CJ laughs. "God, I still fail at the Mom-thing. I might…" she rummages around in her handbag, unearthing her digital camera. "There might be one on here," she shrugs. "Oh, yeah, look, we took these last week." She hands me the camera, and there's Nellie, with alert, expectant eyes, and teeth and a radiant smile.

"She's gorgeous," I tell her. "Honestly."

"Thanks. Now," her voice changes to sternness as she peers at me, "what is, exactly, the matter with you? Is it Josh, do I need to whip him into shape? 'Cause I will, but Donna, you do that better than the rest of us."

"It's not Josh," I sigh. "I mean, yeah, things haven't been great between us, but that is… symptomatic of the greater problem."

"Which is?"

"I don't know," I admit, and then I bury my head in her shoulders and feel tears shooting to my eyes. "I hate being pregnant. I mean I love Guppy to pieces, but absolutely hate the hormones and the tiredness and the cravings and the crying and I'm _fat_ and the whole freaking mess I am." I look at her, eyes swimming, and furious at myself. "Look at me! I can't do my job properly, I can't focus on the daycare, I haven't even started with the wedding yet, and even though I get absolutely nothing done I fall into bed at nine every night like a rock, which means I never get to see Josh awake except in the mornings, and what if it's like this from now until Guppy hits high school?"

"Donna," CJ says my name with a bemused, concerned look in her eyes. "I don't have to tell you that everything you just said was nonsense, do I?"

"No," I hiccup. "I don't think so."

"Come on, let's get you home." We get into a cab. "What you were saying about the wedding?"

I shrug, not meeting her eye. "I've been meaning to get to it, but I just… it's weird. I have all these phone numbers lying around at home, this rabbi, and a wedding planner and everything, but whenever I want to call them I have this great excuse not to."

CJ laughs. "We'll call them now."

"We will?"

"Yeah, 'cause I flew all the way over here. That gives me the right to kick you into shape a couple of times."

"Okay." I turn away from her, trying to hide my grateful smile from her.

And really, all I do for the rest of the day is thank God that I've got CJ, who will fly all the way over here to pull me out of my own self-pity and tiredness by my hair and get my life back on track. It turns out all I needed was that push, CJ glowering at my excuses while she dials the number of the interfaith marriage service Andi gave me. It's actually just a priest and a rabbi that have known each other for decades and cater to the mass of Judeo-Christian weddings in the District by providing ceremonies respectful of both faiths. Toby, of course, hated the idea, which is why he and Andi got married by a justice of the peace, but she told me she's been to some of these ceremonies, and they sound perfect for us. We call, and it turns out there's been a cancellation and they have an opening in the first week of April. So now, suddenly we have a wedding date, which coincidentally falls right into the cherry blossom, easily the best part of the DC year. I make a few more calls while CJ makes chicken for dinner and have a list of possible locations ready as we sit down. Then, CJ, with the stern force that Nellie will come to loathe when she gets older, I'm sure, makes me take a hot bath and sends me to bed by nine o'clock.

"Sleep." She says, sternly. "You need it, and Guppy needs it. I'll clean up here and find a way to entertain myself till your better half comes home. Go!"

Defeated, I pull on flannel pajamas and give her a big hug. "Thank you so much," I tell her. "For everything."

"Go."

I slip into bed, and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, I might actually be looking forward to my wedding. I dream of white dresses and cherry blossoms, and Josh with his dimpled grin, looking at me like I'm the only thing that matters.


	12. Interlude 3:To Say I Love You Out Loud

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Twelve: ...To Say I Love You Right Out Loud (Interlude 3)**

There was a time, he thinks ruefully as he gets out of their car and grabs his overflowing backpack, when he would not have minded coming home around midnight. There was a time when that was an obvious part of his life. In fact, it's always been that way since he started in professional politics, and he's never minded.

Until now.

Because now, he feels like shit for coming home late, again, and he knows Donna will already be there and asleep and when she wakes up in the morning, she'll look at him with those sad, sleep-crusted eyes, and say, "Hi you," and "I didn't hear you come in last night," and then she'll pick a fight with him about his eating habits or their latest legislative battle or how the trashcan is overflowing, and he'll stand there and argue back because after law school and a career in Washington, arguing is as natural as breathing to him, and the thing he wants to say, which is, "Donna, what the _fuck_ is happening" will not be able to work its way out of his mouth.

It's not his fault. He knows she's tired and he can't imagine it's fun to have someone growing inside you, but she knows, better than anyone else, maybe, that he can't leave his desk at five every night. It was never like this before. They'd meet in the parking lot after a long day, and come home together, talking about White House gossip or strategy, and then they'd make dinner if it wasn't too late, and then they'd fall into each other's arms, and things would be blissfully domestic and they'd be _happy_.

She's not happy. He doesn't get it, they're both so excited about Guppy, and for awhile there, after they came back from New Hampshire, she walked around with a glow so obvious he was sure he'd be able to touch it. She's laugh and flirt with him on the office phone and press him against their fridge, and the fact that the growing bulge of her sweater contained their child made her sexier, more beautiful and more perfect than she'd ever been before. Now she's a mess again, and he's scared it's going to keep being like this, and one day, he won't have the energy to pick up the pieces every goddamn morning. He unlocks the door, surprised to find there's a light on the living room, and the TV running. "Donna?" He calls, hopefully.

"Joshua Lyman, come in here so I can kick your ass the way it deserves to be kicked." That's _not_ Donna. With a confused frown, he peeks into the living room, and there's CJ, on the couch of what was once her living room like it's the most normal thing in the world, glaring at him with the sort of expression that makes him want to run in the opposite direction. This is _exactly_ the way she looked at him after his first and only White House Briefing.

"CJ? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm sorting out your lives because apparently, you haven't been managing so well on your own."

"Donna called you?"

"She didn't have to. She's been leaving these teary messages on my machine for weeks and then I fly over here and let me tell you something, the way she looks? With the circles under the eyes and the hollow cheeks? Not such a good sign in pregnant women!"

"I had a hunch."

"Don't you dare be flippant about this! She is in _hell_. You know how I know? I've been there. She's got hormones playing dodge ball inside her, and her baby is sapping every bit of energy in there, not to mention her entire body is not working for her anymore, but for her baby. You know what that feels like?"

"No," he admits. "But CJ, I've been trying to talk to her about it, she just won't let me-"

"Of course she won't!" She shakes her head, still glaring at him. "Do you somehow not get how important this is?"

"Of course I do!" He splutters. "I know that our lives are about to change in a way that makes everything else we've ever done look like a Martha Steward special-"

"Good." CJ sighs. "Look, Donna loves you so much it makes me want to throw up, and I know you feel the same way about her. I know it's easy to forget that once in awhile, but Josh, she really needs you to tell her that. She's swamped, she's going through a really tough time, and she needs to be beaten over the head five times a day with the fact that you're there, exactly where she needs you to be. And she needs you to be involved, with the wedding and stuff. To care. Do you get that?"

He nods. "You flew all the way out here to yell at me?"

"I have a thing at GW tomorrow night, but I flew in a day early."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"CJ," he asks, frowning. "I haven't talked about this with Donna, but I'm sure she'll agree- will you be Guppy's godmother?"

She smiles, and her entire expression softens, gentles. "Of course. I'd… it'd be a pleasure."

"Good." He grins at her. "How's your offspring?"

"Hanging out with her Dad, eating off the spoon now and crawling all over the place. She's got this thing where she kicks off with her foot to go quickly, it's amazing."

"Wow. Do they really grow up that quickly?"

"Even quicker when they're yours."

"I can't wait," he admits.

"Don't tell me," she smiles at him. "Tell Donna."

"She asleep?"

"Yeah, but I think it's okay if you wake her up and the two of you have this conversation." She gives him a little push. "Go! I should call home anyway, make sure Danny hasn't dropped the baby or something yet."

"Kay." He gives her hand a grateful squeeze and walks out of the room. Tiptoes into their bedroom and carefully lowers himself onto his side of the bed, gently lays his hands on her shoulder. "Donna?"

"I'm awake." She pulls herself in a half-sitting position, blinking. "CJ's pretty loud when she yells."

"Yeah." He looks at her, and all he can see is Donna, with the mess of blonde hair that smells so irresistibly of something not quite like cookie dough, but close; wearing those checkered pajamas and blinking up at him with an expression that's not quite need and not quite hope and not quite apprehension, and not quite like her hamster just died. All he can see is Donna, her lip-biting anxiety, dreams still hanging to her eyelashes, and it's been like this a million times- like he's looking at her for the first time, and is distracted by just how beautiful she is. All he can see is Donna, his Donna, and in the darkness of their bedroom the life they have together seems to close in on him, mesh itself together.

"She got a few things wrong," Donna says, quietly. "She got a lot of stuff right, including the part with the hollow cheeks, but I feel like I should give you the whole story."

"What's that?" He asks, frowning, hopeful, and suddenly she's leaning forward and kissing him like she hasn't kissed him in weeks, and when she pulls away she breathes into his ear: "This isn't hell."

"No?" Pulling her close and running his fingers over her cheeks, too hollow, CJ did get that one right, how did he not see that before? How did he not see the tiredness in her eyes, the desperation to bridge the growing gap between her sleeping body and his awake one, late at night, and for the first time he realizes that maybe, probably, she wasn't really sleeping half the time, and he wants to punch himself in the face for being such a moronic, insensitive jackass.

She shakes her head. "It's been a totally shit time, and it hasn't helped that you've been MIA most of it, but it's not your fault, and I'd rather be pissed at you for the rest of my life than not have you around at all."

"Donna," he says, and there it is again, the feeling that she is the best thing that has ever happened to him and he doesn't deserve a single, sweet-smelling hair on her head. Words fail him: they've never been his strong suit. He'd rush into it, sure that words would come to him, and that never worked, they never came out right. He goes with the easiest, simplest truth. "I love you."

She smiles at him. "Yeah," she whispers. "I love you too."

He shyly smiles back at her. "I'm really sorry about… you know. I didn't… I promise that's not what it's going to be like once Guppy gets here, okay?"

"Yeah," she says, and she scoots into his arms. "Okay."

"Seriously," he says, cupping her chin and making her look at her. "I'm really sorry."

"It's okay," she insists.

"But I was an ass."

"You were. But it's okay now."

"How-?"

" 'Cause that's the way it goes, Josh," she laughs. "'Cause we're about to be parents and this is the real world and people forgive each other for not being perfect."

He kisses her. "I don't deserve you," he tells her, sincerely.

"Feeling's mutual," she grins; then yawns. "I'm going back to sleep, okay?"

"I'll be right there," he promises, gesturing vaguely at his suit. "Good night," he whispers, kissing her, again and again.

He tiptoes downstairs to retrieve a clean pair of pajamas from their laundry room, and stops when he hears CJ's voice in the living room.

"Danny, put her on. Just for a second… I don't know, put the phone next to her in the crib or something, just for a sec, Danny, come on… no, you idiot, just… I just don't want her to forget me, okay? Stop laughing! ... Danny, please! ... Shut up, you… thanks." And then her voice changes, and he freezes, transfixed, with a smile growing on his face. "Hey, sweetie," CJ says. "It's Mom. Do you miss me? 'Cause I really, really miss you. Yeah, I do. Hey, don't laugh at me, I can't take that from you. Are you driving Daddy mad? Good girl, yes, you are such a good girl. Give Daddy hell from both of us, that's my girl. But go to sleep now, okay? You have to calm down and go to sleep so you can have some more fun annoying Daddy tomorrow morning, yeah? I love you so much, baby girl." He tiptoes down the hall as quietly as possible, amazed, and when he comes back, carrying the pair of completely oversized pajamas she gave him after Roselyn, CJ's curled up on the couch, laughing into the receiver. She spots him this time, and he mouths 'Thank you' to her. She shoos him from the room with a grin, and he goes, and changes and crawls into bed with Donna, who's sleeping already. As he scoots towards her, her arm reaches out for her, like it hasn't in weeks, and he pulls her close, and she grunts something indiscernible but very, very friendly, and then they both drift into a deep sleep.


	13. Chapter 13: A Village To Raise A Child

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Thirteen: A Village To Raise A Child**

Oh, my god, I'm getting married this week. On Sunday. _This_ Sunday! That's, like, the day after the day after tomorrow. How the hell did this happen?

It all went so quickly. We met with Rabbi Eliser and his protestant partner in crime, Pastor Fisher, the quintessential interfaith odd couple, and decided that it had to be them, and since the only opening this side of my due date was Sunday, April 3rd, we stuck with that. I dragged Josh to look at the locations I'd seen, really boring stuff like the Georgetown Ritz-Carlton, but none of that seemed right. Then I remembered that Guiseppe and Beano, my chef buddies formerly in the employ of Capitol Hill, opened in this adorable, kitschty, Italian place with a rooftop garden with fairlylights and potted orange trees that overlooks the Mall, and I knew that that was the perfect place. Neither of us wanted the big ceremony with the two sides of the aisle and the registry and the hotel ballroom and the crowd of people. We wanted a small ceremony, with our families, the ones we were born into and the ones we grew into, to bless us as we started our own family. Small, artless, magical, with home-made antipasti, prosecco and Italian pizza as the catering arrangement, and not a canapee in sight, overlooking the cherries, the monuments to America's best presidents, the Hill and the White House. That's what we wanted. I called Guiseppe, and he was delighted, and he and his mother have practically organized my wedding, aided by my mother, the First Lady, who was determined to be helpful, and me. The rooftop is perfect, even if I live in constant fear of April showers these days. Bt I'm sure the Universe will cooperate, somehow. It always does, in the end.

We sent the invitations out, and apart from my Mom, received unanimously delightedly squealed yeses back. Not that my mother isn't delighted in her appointed son-in-law, it was the invitations that squicked her. I admit they're a little unusual, but I love them. They're creamy white, with cartoon-ish cherry blossoms printed on them, and on the front there's two pictures of us. One of them was taken during the very first Bartlet for America campaign, Josh with a young, goofy grin on his face, his arm around me and we're grinning in a playful way belied by the look in both our eyes. Even then, we knew we had something, I think. Admitting it was hard. Living it was harder, deliciously awkward, but we pulled it off together, and in the second picture on the invitation, taken maybe three weeks ago, my Guppy bump very clearly visible in the picture, we've got the same looks as the first one. Mom thought it was very bad taste to, in her words, advertise the fact that I'm pregnant, also the part where we could have had this eight years ago if we'd gotten our act together, but I laughed the first complaint away and told her that we would never have found the happiness we have now if we'd started dating eight years ago. It was a painful uphill climb; most of it, but in retrospect, there isn't a single moment I'd want to erase, because that's how worth it it was.

They're getting in on Thursday night, my parents and Ruth. Many of our guests are out-of-towns, now, and most of them are taking the opportunity to spend a few days in the District. The Bartlets are coming in Friday morning, and so are CJ and Danny. CJ flew back two days after her shouting match with Josh, once she'd dragged us to her lecture (_Honoring the Bartlet Presidency_, which was kind of depressing in light of recent events), once she was sure I'd be okay and had helped me narrow down dress-options. When all this is over, I'm sending her a giant bunch of flowers and a Big-Bird-sized box of expensive German chocolates. And possibly a puppy.

"Earth to the bride?" I look up, and Ishmael is waving a sheet of paper in front of me with a half-impatient, half-giddy smile on his face. Of course, today of all days is the First Lady's speech at the UN, which means we're on Air Force One right now going to New York, and back tonight. My entire staff is running around like headless chickens on amphetamines. Including me, but I'm nervous for all the wrong reasons. We're supposed to be making last-minute improvements to the speech, and all I can think about is that in less than ninety-six hours, I'm going to be standing in front of an altar with Josh and vow to honor, to cherish and to keep him until death do us part. Please, God, let it not rain. "Sorry," I apologize to Mrs. Santos and Ishmael, but they just exchange smirks and shrug. "You were saying?"

The speech is fine, actually, in fact it's pretty much brilliant and I _am_ excited about this unique opportunity to bring my boss into the limelight far, far away from the White House and her husband. I know what it's like, the last-minute additions because each of us are scary perfectionists with this insane need to get it a hundred and _fifty_ percent right. In the end, one word or maybe two will be changed, one phrase will be removed or expanded, but we will be convinced that this can move the world. I have this urge to introduce Ishmael to Toby one of these days; the boy needs someone to curb his enthusiasm for speechwriting.

We land, get into the car, and I can tell that Mrs. Santos is getting nervous by the way she's twisting her earrings. I talked her into this, and I can only pray that this wasn't a mistake. But I know that if she wants to be, Helen Santos can be a brilliant, captivating public speaker. When I heard the UN delegation was introducing a resolution into the General Assembly to ensure Gender Equality in primary education, I knew that this was our chance to make one of our key issues publicly heard, away from the power playing of G8 summits and backdoor legislative work in Washington. I fought with Lou until I was ready to take her in a mudwrestling match, but I won, the news cycle is completely ours and she even gave us our ex-Press Secretary, the illustrious Ms. Schott who moved to the West Wing last year, back for the day.

We ride through Manhattan and arrive at the UN headquarters, glistening and blinding in the April sun. Please, God, let this weather hold. They take us into our Green Room, where everyone gratefully gulps down the contents of a fruit basket and green tea.

"God, I wish this was Tequila," Mrs. Santos tells me with a wry smile as she empties a glass of water. "I should stop, or I might I have to pee. Oh, my god, Donna, what do I do if I suddenly have to pee?"

I giggle. "You'll figure it out, I'm sure. Are you nervous?"

"I just freaked out about having to pee, I think it's safe to say I'm a little spooked." She stares at me palely. "What the hell were we thinking?"

"Mrs. Santos, you're going to be great. The speech is mind-blowing, and you're going to do a fantastic job presenting it. You've done this before," I remind her.

"Not before five hundred half-dead diplomats. Not on something that actually matters."

"That's not true- well, the last part isn't." I smile at her. "Relax!"

"I'll try."

Into the GA, and I don't have time to be awed by where we are, because immediately she starts speaking, and it's truly, truly brilliant. The diplomats applaud in all the right places, and ten minutes into the thing, I figure she's going to be okay, and Annabeth and I sneak out to make sure the world knows how brilliant we are.

Three hours, a reception, a press conference and the friendliest coverage this office has had since the election later, we're back on the plane, dancing to Tom Jones and everyone except me is emptying champagne bottles.

"Donna, thank you so much for talking me into this," Mrs. Santos says for the millionth time, hugging me. I laugh and spin her around, singing along to "She's a lady. " I only realize now relieved I am, how this is a huge weight off my shoulders.

"_And the lady is mine_," Ishmael "sings" as he flounces over, spinning me around and planting a friendly kiss on my cheek. He raises his glass: "To Donna, the crazy pregnant woman who hired us!" Everyone claps and cat-calls, and I blush and giggle stupidly. Somehow, this is a very reassuring start to the next few days.

Thank God I _am_ pregnant, because if I wasn't, I would be very, very tipsy by the time we land at Andrews. "Make sure she gets into the residence safely," I tell the secret service guy when the First Lady dances into the car, still humming tunelessly. "And without falling over."

I'm about to get into my car when I notice an SUV that isn't part of our motorcade. I frown, and then the door opens. "DONNA!"

"Josh?" I'm grinning as I hurry over- the last time Josh picked me up from the airport was, god, it must have been after Gaza. "Hey, you," I slip in beside him and kiss him. It's so nice to know that after all that he's finally, totally and completely mine. And will be officially come Saturday.

"Is Helen… drunk?" He asks me, peering out of the window and watching my boss' third attempt to get into her car.

"What can I say? Empty stomach and too much champagne."

He laughs softly as we pull out of the airport. "Hey, congratulations. That was quite a coup you pulled off there."

"Thanks."

"I hate to tell you this, but I might have to steal your little Lebanese Wonderboy away from you. He's incredible."

"Ishmael? Yeah, I know he is."

"Like Sam in the old days. Except possibly better." He smiles out of the window and squeezes my hand. "And how," he asks the bulge of my dress, "are you?"

"She was very good, didn't kick at all during the speech," I report, happily. "But she's going pretty strong now." Josh places a hand on my stomach, and immediately his face lights up. I smirk. "You are ridiculously adorable."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Don't." I lean against his comfortingly solid frame, closing my eyes. I guess I doze off, because next moment we're at home, and after many kisses and whispered compliments and slow, delicious sex, and cold pizza for dinner afterwards, we fall asleep in each other's arms.

I spend most of the day with my parents on Saturday, but am far too busy to worry about tomorrow, because we're having our pre-wedding-get-together-slash-bridal-shower-slash-baby-shower tonight, which basically means two giant pots of chili, a lot of guests and presents galore. We asked in our invitations to either get us something for Guppy or to refrain from giving us gifts, instead donating to money to an Ethiopian Children's Hospital I visited with the First Lady last year, but I'm still excited about the presents, especially the stuff for Guppy. The doorbell rings just as I've put out the last bag of tortilla chips and the Barlets -Abbey, Liz, Gus, Ellie and Laura, Zoey and Charlie- Toby, Andi and the twins are crowded in our doorway.

Hugs are exchanged; Liz and Ellie apologize for their loved ones' absence: Vic is tied up in surgery, Doug with work –Josh raises his eyebrows at me- and Annie with finals. Abbey, Zoey, Toby and Charlie are carrying a huge, apparently heavy wrapped item, and Huck is bouncing up and down excitedly. But before I can attempt open the crate, the door opens and Josh, Sam and Ainsley, and my parents and Ruth all spill into our tiny hallway. I hug my parents tightly. My dad plants a shy kiss on my cheek, and Mom whispers: "How do you feel?"

"Good," I answer her, truthfully. "Being busy probably helps." Ruth smiles in the background and gives my hand an indulgent squeeze. Before she can ask how I'm eating, the door rings, again, and Ishmael, Ronna, Will, Annabeth, CJ, Danny and Nellie all walk in. I perform a quick headcount and, seeing as that's everyone, herd them all into the living room. We invited the Santos', of course, but because of Secret Service regulations we decided that maybe it was okay if they only come to the actual wedding tomorrow, and skip tonight. Once everyone has found a place on the sofa, chairs, dining table or simply the floor, and has been supplied with soda, beer or champagne, Josh hits his beer bottle with a fork a few times. The chattering throng falls silent at once. Nellie's sitting in Abbey's lap, completely relaxed; Laura's playing with CJ's pearl necklace; Zoey and Charlie are cuddled on the sofa. Molly is examining her Dad's tie with interest while Huck is looking up expectantly from where he's sitting on the table. Will and Ishmael are sitting together on the floor, heads together, Ellie's legs are dangling as she sits on our table, Ainsley's playing with _her_ engagement ring and laughing with Andi, Sam, on the floor, listening to Will and Ishmael talk and leaning his head against her knees happily. My parents are beaming at me from the dining room chairs, while Ruth is happily answering Gus and Huck's questions about what Josh was like when he was a little boy, and I'm in the middle of it all, heart aching from too much happiness.

Josh looks around. His eyes find me, and the look he gives me, the love he's giving me, makes me feel like I'm about to explode. He clears his throat, and says, to room at large: "We just wanted to say, thank you all so much for coming. We're truly honored to have you all in our lives, and to see how happy you all are for us, that's a really great feeling. Donna's been making me read these baby books," -at this, general laughter breaks out and I feel compelled to point out that I haven't been _making_ him do anything, just strongly urging- "and one of the things I read was the whole thing about it taking a village to raise a child. And we… I just wanted to say, we kind of see you all as our village. We can't wait for Guppy to be here and get to know all of you. And we hope you'll continue to help us out. Thank you so much for being here. And enjoy the chili."

There's a general murmur of applause and "hear, hear". I catch Josh's eyes and mouth an "I love you," which he answers with a huge, dimpled grin The rest of the evening passes amicably, with laughter, food and catching-up. We unwrap some of our gifts, and each of them is stunning, and honestly humbling. CJ and Danny bought a beautiful, plush baby blanket, a rich cream color with little silver fish embroidered at the edges- guppies. It's wonderfully soft and the kind of thing you pass on through the generations. My eyes sting as I thank them, thank CJ for so much more than this blanket.

But the best present of them all comes form the Bartlets and Toby and Andi, the giant crate they were lugging inside. Josh and I peel off the wrapping paper to reveal a wooden chest, and when we open it, we see… books. At least fifty of them, all kinds of children's books, from one of those plushy ones babies use as chew toys to a hardcover of _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ that looks just like the one Gus was reading at Christmas. There's a beautifully illustrated version of _Winnie-the-Pooh, The Very Hungry Caterpillar_, a book of Grimm's fairy tales, there's Beverly Cleary and Enid Blyton, Richard Scary's ABC, the Narnia Books and _When Hitler Stole The Pink Rabbit_, _The Cat In The Hat_, _Goodnight, Moon_… I look at Josh, and we're both speechless.

"Wow," he says, and I nod furiously, tears running down my cheeks. "Thank you all so much."

"Yes," I say, "this is _such_ an amazing present, so generous I don't even know…" I wipe my eyes. "Thank you."

"We were trying to come up with something Jed would have approved of," Abbey says, quietly. "There's a _Shakespeare for Children_ somewhere in there, I think."

"Every book in there has been read and approved by one of us," Andi explains. "It's kind of in the spirit of the whole village-thing, give Guppy a solid collection of bedtime stories. And we only put stuff in we liked, right, guys?"

"Uh-huh," Gus says. He points at _Green Eggs and Ham_: "That one's my favorite. That, and Harry Potter."

Not to be outdone, Molly and Huck scramble over. "I like that one," Molly says, pointing at _Charlotte's Web_. Huck considers, then pulls out a Shel Silverstein collection: "I like this one. I like _Guess How Much I Love You_, too, but Daddy always complains when we read that." Everyone laughs.

"Laura's nuts about Pooh, aren't you?" Ellie encourages. Laura stuffs her fingers into her mouth and nods, shyly.

"Thank you all, so much," I repeat, amazed. Everyone gathers around, recognizes books, reminisces, and laughter and talking fills our living room once more.

Later, much later, I kick them out of the house, all of them, even Josh, who's staying with Sam because he has suddenly decided he's a man of tradition and can't sleep in our bed tonight.

"We don't want to tempt faith, do we?" He asks me, seeing my pout. "Oh, come on, we need all the help we can get with the weather tomorrow, right? It can't hurt." He leans in and kisses me, once on the mouth and, when he's sure nobody's looking, once on the stomach, and then on the mouth again and this is going to be our last unmarried kiss. I feel the giddiness rise in me. I wave everyone goodbye and give hugs and kiss sleeping children goodnight, and before I know it, I'm alone in our house, the rooms that were so full of happy noise just moments before ringing with silence. I clear away some of the plates, change and crawl into bed.

I stare into the familiar darkness of our bedroom, cradling my Guppy-bump in my arms as my eyes fall shut. This time tomorrow, I'll be Mrs. Josh Lyman.

It feels as good as I always knew it would.


	14. Chapter 14: All You Need Is Love

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Fourteen: All You Need is Love**

My alarm rings at eight-thirty, and immediately I'm wide awake, flinging my eyes open and rolling out of bed. I pour myself a bowl of Cheerios and eat it while pacing around as Josh might, too excited and giddy to sit still. We're getting married; we're really getting married! It's pretty much the definition of too good to be true.

I sneak a peek out of the kitchen window, and nearly drop my cereal. The sky, a brilliant, breezy blue yesterday is grey and overcast, and as I stare, heavy raindrops start hitting the pavement outside. "Oh, come ON!" I yell, hitting my palm on the kitchen counter annoyance. "Don't do this to me! Not _today_!" Cursing, I finish my cereal, run my eyes over the paper to make sure the world is still standing and not in the way of our wedding, and get into the shower. I'm vigorously scrubbing every part of my body while singing along to Madonna, using the expensive shower gel and moisturizer Josh bought me for Christmas years ago, which I have been saving for special occasions. Two Inaugurations. Election Day. Leo's Funeral. CJ's wedding. I remember using them after the convention, when I came to ask Josh for a job. And I took them to Hawaii.

It's only right that I'm using up both today.

I pull on my maternity jeans and a blue tank top with a smile, stare at the empty containers. I don't throw them out, but crawl under my bed to retrieve my memorabilia shoebox, and I gently tuck them inside, along with ticket stubs, dried flowers, postcards, letters, photographs and my old diaries, running my fingers through the clutter. Today, we are giving our past a future. I hear a key turning in the lock, wrenching me out of my nostalgia. I hurry downstairs, pulling on my sweatshirt, and see Josh shaking raindrops out of his hair. "Hey," he grins at me.

"What are you doing here? I thought- JOSH, STOP LOOKING AT ME!" I suddenly shriek, cowering down on the landing, out of his sight, and covering my face with yesterday's _Times_.

"What?"

"You're not supposed to see me until the ceremony, you idiot. That's the whole point of sleeping in separate beds the night before the wedding!"

"Really? Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense."

"Yes it does," I say sarcastically. "Imagine that. Close your eyes so I can go into the kitchen- CLOSE YOUR EYES, JOSHUA!"

He obliges, and I scoot past him. "Is there any way for me to get out of this wedding?" This earns him a swat on the head. "OW! What the hell? I was kidding!"

"I know. Still. Whatever happened to tempting faith?" I reach the kitchen and close the door behind me, leaving a crack open. "You can open your eyes now. What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I'm getting ready, what do you think I'm doing? Hey, it's raining pretty badly out there, what-"

"Not a word, Josh, not a word."

"I'm just saying, someone up there seems to really hate us."

"Hate _me_," I mutter, but under my breath. I hear Josh's footsteps disappear upstairs, hear the shower running and then hear him doing –I'm really not sure what, but it makes a lot of noise- while I try to properly read the morning paper, my insides tingling with excitement. I make myself a peanut butter sandwich while staring out at the sky, which seems to be getting lighter. Hope restored, I listen to Josh walk downstairs, again making a lot more noise than he should. "I'm going," he says, and I can tell that he's leaning against the kitchen door. "See you later."

"Yeah," I say, and my smile grows wide and wider at the thought of "later".

"Love you," he says, as I hear the front door opening.

"Love you too."

The rest of the morning passes excruciatingly slowly as I clean up the house just to keep myself busy, call Beano several times to make sure everything's fine and hypnotically stare outside the window, willing the sky to go lighter. They've put up a marquee and a couple of those French heating rods just in case, and Beano said something about moving the actual ceremony inside. I'm calming down. Around two o'clock, my mother, CJ, Helen Santos and Isabel suddenly waltz in, declare themselves my bridesmaids, cancel my hairdresser's appointment and declare it their intention to "help me" get ready. Isabel and Mrs. Santos' combined efforts on my hair initially results in me looking like a poodle starring in a trashy eighties movie, but we fix that, and as they leave me, they hand me four lovely presents: something old (an old bracelet of my grandmother's I thought I lost as a little girl), something new (teardrop earrings from Helen that go perfectly with my dress), something borrowed (the gorgeous pearl-and-diamond necklace CJ wore at her wedding) and, of course, something blue (gel pads for my shoes, the fancy, cooling and revitalizing kind). Amused and touched, I wave my three bridesmaids goodbye, and smile at my mother unsurely.

"This is it."

She laughs. "You want me to call you a cab to Mexico?"

"I think I'm okay." And I am, as I traipse back upstairs, slip out of my clothes and pull out the gorgeous wedding dress, empire-waist off-white with a flowing skirt that conceals my Guppy-bump without hiding it. I run my fingers lightly over the embroidered material, and my gaze falls on the wall around our bedroom mirrors. We're not the kind of people that keep pictures of our loved ones on the mantelpiece or on the staircase wall. We just tape them to the wall wherever, and most of them have wound up here, cluttering the space around this mirror. There's a faded picture of a broadly-smiling little girl with pigtails and Josh's smile, and her eyes seem to meet mine, and I'm suddenly shy in my own house. Under the watchful but approving gaze of my grandmother, whom I still miss constantly; Leo, who I wish was here so much; President Bartlet, who would have loved today almost much as I do, and Joanie, who I just hope approves of me, I slip on my dress.

When I step downstairs, fully dressed and made up, the woman who I glance sideways in the mirror, the _bride_, makes my stomach flutter. Mom gaps when she sees me and impatiently wipes her eyes before adjusting me where I need adjusting and getting me into the car. The sun has come out, and as we ride through DC, the city is shimmering and shining like an enchanted treasure. We arrive at Beano's at five past four, and as I squint up, I can see a crowd of people already assembled on the roof. Up the elevator, and Mom is reassuringly squeezing my hand, though I don't need reassuring. I'm more sure about this than almost anything else I've ever done.

The elevator clangs to a halt, and suddenly, we're surrounded by people, Guiseppe's mother loudly complimenting everything from my hair to my pregnant stomach, Ruth enthusiastically agreeing with her, my Dad opening and closing his mouth apparently at a loss for words, Abbey joking how she thought she's never get to see the day, and my two flower girls, Miranda Santos and Molly, asking me who I think looks prettier. We walk out of the little vestibule, past the lavishly decorated rooftop where later, in a time that seems so distant and yet so close, we will celebrate, towards the rooftop greenhouse. Guiseppe's _mamma_ shoos the remaining guests inside, leaving me alone with my parents, Ruth and the two girls. My Mom gives me a kiss and a hug. "I'm so proud of you," she breathes into my ear. She and Ruth wish me luck before following the others.

"Ready?" I ask Dad, biting my lip.

He nods. "You look beautiful," he tells me. Then, sheepishly, "You're happy?"

"Very."

"He's gonna be a good father? He's gonna make you laugh?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go." He takes my arm, and Miranda and Molly grab their flower baskets. Molly opens the door and unceremoniously yells inside: "Here she comes!" I grip Dad's hand tightly and he smiles at me a little sadly as inside, a piano starts playing and then singing, terribly off-key but wonderfully genuine erupts.

_There's nothing you do that can't be done._

Walking into a strange campaign for a candidate I couldn't have picked out of a crowd, heart-broken and pissed at the world, and finding a stranger with a puzzled, dimpled smile that had more faith in me after three minutes than Phil had ever had.

_Nothing you can sing that can't be sung._

Our first Inauguration Ball, dancing with Josh and feeling like a fairytale princess just pages away from happily ever after, him spinning me around until I was breathless, mouthing along with the Sinatra playing in the background, and walking into the White House the next morning, both of us knowing that it needed to stop or I needed to quit my job.

_Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game._

"I'm just saying, if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer." A silent office in a dark evening, and all my anger at him spilling out of me, and all that was left was a closeness that I couldn't name, but that was much more than a stupid crush on my boss.

"If you were in accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."

_It's easy_

It was never really easy, it was complicated and messy, hanging on to each other –and sometimes just the idea, the dream of each other- despite everything. Sometimes, I was thisclose to just giving up, moving back to Madison and finding the life I thought Josh could never give me, with domesticity and a house with a yard and a tire swing. And when I quit, I did it because I thought we had run out of chances. But we never did run out of chances, out of might-have-been moments.

_Nothing you can name that can't be named_

And our future, together and with Guppy, seems to present itself to me on a silver tray, shining and glowing behind Josh at the end of this beautiful, make-shift aisle. As I watch the bobbing heads of Miranda and Molly, the thought_ 'We need to think of a name for Guppy'_ shoots through my head. And I know we will. And then soon enough, Guppy will be here and properly named, but we'll still say Guppy, and there will be a time when my teenage son or daughter will reproach me for doing so, and the prospect sounds deliciously appealing. I continue walking down the aisle, past beaming faces giving me the thumbs-up or sniffing into their handkerchiefs, and this moment is ending way, way too quickly.

_It's easy… _

The greenhouse doesn't look like a greenhouse, it looks like a lavishly decorated garden Eden, with orange blossoms and home-grown tomatoes and fairy lights and paper chains, with bougainvilleas and tulips, crocuses and roses and the people I love most in the world crowded together, each of them beaming at me. I look ahead. Josh is standing under our chuppah, four posters of wood covered in flowers and ribbons, and he catches my eye and smiles at me, and Guppy flutters against my stomach, and it's probably the best moment of my life.

_All you need is love,_

_All you need is love,_

_All you need is love,_

_Love is all you need…_

Rabbi Eliser and Pastor Fisher greet us. Josh reaches out for my hand when no-one seems to be looking, runs his fingers over mine like they're the keys of an instrument he doesn't quite know how to play. Toby reads a prayer from the Talmud, and then the President reads what we asked him to, since Josh had picked Sam as best man.

"_If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal,"_ he reads. I know Corinthians is the cheesiest, most clichéd wedding reading that exists, but it had to be this. I was never the girl who had her wedding planned out in her head, but this part, even I had figured out. "_Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs_." And sometimes, sometimes it does all of those things. Sometimes love speaks in desperate silences and exploding cards, in cold, wounded looks on campaign rallies, and things still work out. "_It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres_." Always perseveres. Even when your friends, roommates, your own mother is telling you to get out of it while you're still sane, quit and go out and live your life; when they don't know that for you, he is a defining part of the life you want to live. _"… And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love_."

I surreptitiously wipe my eyes. Our wonderful priest/rabbi duo deliver a sermon that's funny, uplifting, honest and wise at the same time, but I can barely appreciate it from the way my ears are buzzing by now. Then, Pastor Fisher turns to us with a smile. "Okay, everyone, it's show time," he says, loudly, and everyone laughs. "As you all know, we're gathered here today to join these two in marriage. I'm going to start with the Christian part, and then my buddy over here can do the Jewish. Ready?" He gives me a huge grin as he raises his arms in blessing and turns to me: "Do you, Donna, take Josh to be your lawful wedded husband?"

My throat is suddenly dry, and my heart's beating like crazy, and I look at Josh and then I speak, my voice loud and clear and a promise: "I do. As my husband and friend and _my guy_. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."

Josh squeezes my hand, and I feel a little dizzy as Pastor Fisher turns to him, and he cuts to the chase: "I, Josh Lyman, take you, Donna, to be my wife and to be mine. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."

Seamlessly, Rabbi Eliser takes over. Sam hands him the rings, simple gold wedding bands, and he blesses them in Hebrew. The words roll over me, a beautiful secret from an ancient time. Josh takes one of the rings and smiles at me, saying something in Hebrew, and then repeating in English: "Behold, you are betrothed unto me with this ring according to the laws of Moses and Israel." He slips the ring onto my finger, and my vision clouds with tears.

I take the other ring from Rabbi Eliser and slip it on Josh's finger. "With this ring, I thee wed," I say, simply.

Holding their hands aloft, Rabbi and Pastor say, together: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance on you And give you peace."

"Amen," I say softly, and so does Josh; and so do my parents and Ruth and CJ and the President and First Lady and little Miranda and Molly and everyone assembled here today, and their blessing runs over me.

"We now pronounce you husband and wife."


	15. Chapter 15: Taking Our Sweet Time

**And Now The World Is Ours**

**Chapter Fifteen: Take Out Sweet Time**

We break the glass, we drink the wine, we kiss and bathe in the resulting applause, we walk out of our greenhouse in a shower of rice, bubbles, rose petals and candy. We hold on tightly to each other, both of us unable to believe that this day has finally come, that we are now, officially, stuck with each other for the rest of our lives.

People crowd around us, hug and clap shoulders, wipe eyes, compliment, laugh and sniff, twirl me around, hold me at arm's length, pat Josh on the back and ruffle his hair. I feel like I'm floating slightly above ground, like there's a helium balloon inside me and with every stolen glance at my wedding ring, it grows a little bigger. Toasts are made, with Bellinis for the adults and "Guppinis" (my creation, the ginger ale version) for me, and the kids in attendance. The sun has come out, and is bathing us, the Mall and the monuments in spectacular evening-light, and I'm sure I can smell the cherries from here. The table in the middle of the marquee is groaning under the weight of home-made antipasti, thinly sliced pizza, risotto, frittata and the pots of delicious, fresh pasta. Having barely eaten all day –or at least it feels that way- I'm ravenous and polish off three slices of focaccia in three minutes, prompting a general migration towards the buffet. Over the sea of heads, I catch Josh's eye, and he grins at me, shaking his head like he still can't believe his good fortune, and neither can I.

Once everyone has helped themselves, and a ravenous silence has fallen, my dad hits his glass with a spoon, and slowly, everyone falls silent as he gets up. My Dad looks so wrong in a suit, remnant from a time when he had to wear them to work and was incredibly unhappy in them, but today, he looks taller and prouder than usual, and he beams at me as he starts speaking. "For those of you who don't know me, I'm Donna's Dad, Robert Moss. I'm not one for big speeches, but I've only got one daughter, and she's only getting married once –hopefully- so it's now or never. Those of you that are parents know that the only thing you want for your kids more than for them to be happy is for them to know what they want, and to pursue that with all their hearts. Donna, sweetheart, I'm so happy to see you tonight with that big smile on your face and that round bump of yours, because I know you're happy and I know that this was what you wanted, and you've got it. Your Mom and I used to worry about you a lot, because we didn't know how you were ever gonna meet someone given the life you lead, but it seems to me like you had it figured out pretty good, and we couldn't be happier for both of you. The concept of parents giving away their daughter is pretty passé and probably not politically-correct, and it's right that way, because first of all you made it clear from the age of four that you were never ours to give, and second of all because we'll never stop being your parents. But tonight –and I speak for your lovely mother too- I think tonight we're sure that we're done, with the worrying, we can both lean back and enjoy the rest of the ride with you, and your lovely Josh, and with Guppy, because you found the track that was right for you, and you're still running. We both wish both of you all the best from all our hearts. To the bride and groom," he closes, and while Bellini's are raised, I give him a big hug and kiss his familiar, stubbly cheek.

"Thank you so much, Daddy," I whisper. "I love you so much."

He mumbles something gruff into my ear and kisses the top of my nose, like he used to when I was a kid, and a lone tear slides down my cheek.

The food is spectacular and so is the view from the rooftop. I lean against the wrought-iron railing with my third "Guppini" and forty-second slice of pizza, watching the sun sink, painting the monuments and the head of our guests in a million shades of red and gold. Everyone's laughing, talking, catching up. The kids are playing catch. Josh slides up to me, wraps his arm around mine and grins at me, apparently speechless. I bury my head in his shoulder, take in his comforting, papery, dry-cleaned smell and his wonderfully regular heartbeat. He cups my chin in his hands, turns my face towards him, and kisses me. Away from our guests, alone under the huge sky, all that seems to exist are our bodies as they touch, and for the umpteenth time today, I wish I could make this moment go on forever. And at the same time, I know I wouldn't forgo the moments to come, the future we will have together, not even for this.

The only other speech of the evening is CJ's, coming an hour or two after Dad's. "I know it's customary for the Best Man to give the second speech of the evening," she starts, "but Sam asked me to take over. Despite the very strong temptation to do so, I'm not going to dig out the mass of amusing anecdotes from ten years ago to prove to you that tonight could have happened much, much sooner. If you want to hear those, you'll have to catch me later. I'll tell them, just not where Donna can hear me." Everyone laughs, and I shake my head and blush. CJ pauses for effect, then continues. "One of my favorite words to say is _yeast_. My mother used to make these fantastic yeasty buns, and she would always tell me that everyone thought yeast was incredibly complicated, but that that isn't actually true. Turns out the secret with yeast is, it needs time. A little can go a long way, but you need to give it time to take the flour and the water and make something out of it." She smiles at us, and I can see where this is going. "So yes, this wedding probably could have happened a long time ago if the two of you had gotten your acts together. But in a time where people get married in Vegas and divorced a month later, I think it's great to see that the two of you took your sweet time. For one thing, how else would we have known how cute Donna looks six months pregnant in a wedding dress? But more importantly, when I look at you tonight, I know that I don't have to wish you luck. I mean, I will, but I won't have to. You guys have this figured out, and I look at you and I know that you are going to make this work. You're going to be _that_ couple and Guppy's probably going to be better behaved than Nellie over here will ever be. And I can't wait to see it all happen. So I won't say good luck, and I won't say thank god this has finally happened –not to your faces, anyway- but I will say that I speak for everyone here when I wish you the very best for the years to come. To Josh and Donna, everyone!"

Applause erupts, cat-calling and feet-stomping applause, and this time I'm actually crying at the way CJ, with her gangly charm has put so much of what I've felt all day into her own, quirky, loving words. I wipe my eyes and give her a big, huge hug and it's perfect. Music starts playing, and Josh unceremoniously detaches me from CJ, takes my hand in his, and leads me to the dance floor. We don't have a band, because we're cheap and disorganized, but we've got a pretty good stereo system and it's Sinatra again, crooning "I've got you under my skin" and it's just right. Josh twirls me round and we grin at each other, huge, wide-eyed grins as my Dad dancing with Ruth, the Santos', Danny and CJ, tripping over each other and laughing, joins us, my Mom being led to the dance floor by our resident charmer Ishmael. We grin at each other, and Josh whispers into my hair how much he's looked forward to this day, and how much he loves me, and I feel dizzily, deliriously happy

The night passes way too quickly as we eat, dance some more, admire and cut our delicious cake, with big, huge smiles that have nothing to do with the twenty-five cameras pointing to us, and suddenly it's past one and I'm curled up on Josh's lap, who looks like he would be complaining if it was any other night, and yawning like I'm paid for it. With fingers interlaced and placed, lightly, on my stomach, we watch our guests. My parents are slow-dancing like teenagers, Sam and Ainsley are waltzing lightly in a corner. We smirk to see Kate and Will trying to hide the fact that they're leaving together, apparently rekindling their petered-out romance. President Santos is "dancing" with his daughter, who has tomato-sauce stains all over her flower girl dress. Most of the other kids have fallen asleep on laps and in strollers. A hum of conversation, laughter. "Look at them all," I mumble, happily.

Josh shakes his head. "I'm too busy looking at you."

I giggle.

"What?"

"That was extremely corny," I tell him, and then lean over to lightly kiss him. "But it suits you."

"I'll keep that in mind." And then he's kissing me properly, until I break away because I have to heavily yawn yet again. Josh laughs. "You're trying to tell me something?"

I shake my head, resting it on his shoulder. "I'm okay."

"You're practically passing out," he tells me. "You want to get going?"

"No!" I turn to him with a frown. "It's our wedding, Josh! We can't just leave, that's not how it works." I shake my head at him. "I'm fine, really. I'll probably be down for most of tomorrow, but that's okay, right?"

He gives an inexplicable little laugh. "Sure. You want to dance some more?" I do, of course, and we twirl and slowly sway to the crooning of Ella Fitzgerald and to "Beauty and the Beast" played by Molly, Huck and Miranda's request. Gradually, we bid most of our guests goodnight, President Santos carrying a sleeping Miranda as he hugs us both. Andi and Toby are next, Andi shleping a fast-asleep Huck while Molly's still valiantly talking between huge yawns. I know how she feels. And as our party thins out more and more, even I have to admit that I am, actually, very, very tired. When I whisper to Josh that I do kind of want to get going after all, he smirks, and to my surprise, waves Ruth over.

"Mom," he prods, eye-brows raised, and I am incredibly confused. "Donna wants to get going."

"Ah," Ruth says, smiling me. "Donna, honey, Josh told me you didn't want to go on a honeymoon."

"Yes," I say, slowly. It's true- I told him, in so many words, that if he really loved me he would not talk me into getting on a plane, in a tiny airline seat, far away from the capable hands of Dr. Walsh and the OB/GYN floor of George Washington Hospital. Not to mention to some exotic place where I can't brush my teeth with tap without having to worry about Guppy being born with an actual fin, which would make the nickname _so_ horrible. And then I promised him a long, proper honeymoon once Guppy was born and old enough to stay with someone who wasn't us for a week. Or two.

"I know you're worried about traveling while you're pregnant," Ruth says, "but I wanted to give you something special for your wedding, and I decided to organize a mini-honeymoon for you." She glances at me unsurely and valiantly plows on. "A friend of mine runs an Inn in Charlottesville, that's an hour and twenty minutes on the freeway, if you speed a little- and you've got a suite there till Thursday, if you want to go."

I'm speechless. Completely speechless. "I… wow. Thank you. What… I haven't… we need to pack, it's late, I…"

"I kind of took care of that," Josh pipes up helpfully. "This morning."

"You were in on this?" I round on him.

"Well, yeah. She was trying to surprise me, too, but she called Margaret and she spilled."

I stare at them both, then hug Ruth tightly. "Thank you," I tell her, delightedly. We say our good-byes to her, my parents, CJ and the other hard-core wedding guests who've stayed till now before I sneak to the bathroom to change into the pajama bottoms and sweatshirt Josh packed for me- by his mother's urging, of course. The last people I say goodbye to are Guiseppe and Beano, wiping their eyes and telling me, for the last time, what a beautiful bride I make. Made, I suppose.

The secret service car is waiting downstairs, and Agent Morton, after grinning at me and shaking Josh's hand in congratulations, doesn't blink when we ask him whether he's up for a drive to Virginia. We climb in on the back seat, and Agent Morton discretely lowers the dividing screen. I crawl into Josh's arms, and he gently nuzzles my head. "We're married," he says, grinning.

"We are," I affirm, closing my eyes. I twist my wedding ring around one last time before my eyes drift shut. I fall asleep so deeply, I don't wake until Josh gently shakes me because we've arrived in Charlottesville. Bleary-eyed and half-asleep, I stumble out of the car and follow Josh, who has retrieved the key from under the doormat, through the dark and deserted lobby into our room. I dimly take in the room before sinking down on the huge bed, closing my eyes and falling into a deep sleep.


End file.
